


policy of truth

by vhsgod



Category: Persona 2, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Akira is a TatsuJun kid, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Kurusu Akira, Drug Use, Everyone Is Gay, Gen, Multi, Ryuji Says Fuck, akira and ryuji are punks, akira is also a bisexual mess, ann luvs girl groups and duran duran, futaba is the three Gs - goth gamer and gay, goro is just his good ol gay self and loves some disco, i know it's the 80s but shhh lemme have fun, makoto and haru are secretly into metal, morgana has a fanny pack on him bc why not, no ships atm but i'll add as the story progresses, yusuke is a smiths fan so god help him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:04:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhsgod/pseuds/vhsgod
Summary: 1988—they say you're stupidthat you're too young to votethey say you'll swallow anythingthat they shove down your throathowever, you and your friends—out of all kids in the world—decide to defy society and steal the hearts of the wicked. but as you dig yourself deeper into the abyss, you discover what plagues all of humanity.





	1. heard somebody cry

**Author's Note:**

> basically i was on twitter and said "what if we set persona 5 in the 80s ?" and now here i am lol
> 
> this is basically a retelling of the story, but i will alter dialogue to fit the situation, add some special scenes (which will be totally gay btw), and some persona 2 characters make an appearance or will be mentioned
> 
> anyway, enjoy the music references that i'll throw in from time to time and leave some kudos if you enjoy this :-)

Even though the concert didn’t end until later that night, I left early so I would get home on time. I don’t even remember who was performing—a friend drag me into it. The music was great and all, but I couldn’t afford to stay out late on a school night, especially with Dad being an officer and all. So I left, even though my friend called me a killjoy; I didn’t really care, I was starting to get tired anyway.

I arrived back at my neighborhood at around eight that night, or at least that’s what my watch said. It was pitch black outside, the shadows forming a blanket of darkness over the whole place. Luckily, it wasn’t too dark out since few of the street lamps were on that night. It was kinda chilly out, but the wind didn’t phase me since I wore my leather jacket—the one embroidered with diamond studs and had a few pins attached to it. Not only was it comfortable, but it matched my style and it screamed punk. I’m not totally a punk, but with my dark, curly hair growing a bit past my shoulders, having my left ear pierced, and liking alternative music, Dad said I might as well be one.

Another breeze of cool air flew by when I took another turn, creating an eerie-sounding howl that nearly scared the shit outta me. A few faint screams followed, but it took me a second to realize those were real. Where the hell were they coming from?

“Just get in the car!” I heard a man growl far up ahead.

“Stop it!” a woman’s voice followed.

Judging by the tone of their voices, they sounded like they were arguing. I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I decided to check it out by making a run for it. I immediately approached the scene, where my suspicions were confirmed. Just ahead of me, a woman was struggling to break free while some man was forcing her to get into his car. I wasn’t too sure about his state of mind, but he seemed very,  _very_ drunk.

“No!” she yelled.

“Don’t give me that shit…” the man scowled.

“Please stop!”

Whoever she was, she needed help and I just wasn’t gonna walk away from it. I had to do something, so I walked up to the payphone nearby and tried to dial the police. The drunk went on about how the police were his bitches or something, but since he was intoxicated, I called bullshit on it. However, before anyone could pick up, I heard sirens in the distance. At that point, I just hung up the phone, which was when the man finally noticed me.

I couldn’t get a good glimpse of him since it was dark outside, but he was bald and I think he was growing some facial hair. Whoever the hell he was, I wasn’t gonna let him get away with it.

“What’re you looking at?” he glared at me. “Get the fuck outta my face!”

 _“Not happening tonight,”_ I thought.

The man turned his attention back to the woman, continuing to force her into the car. I was about to confront him again, but before I could, he lost his balance and fell face first onto the sidewalk. _“That shit’s gotta hurt,”_ I thought. But honestly, he probably deserved it. While he was down, I went up to the woman and checked on her.

“Ma’am,” I asked, “are you alright?”

Before she was able to answer me, we turned and saw that the man regained his balance, pressing his hand against his bloody forehead. _“Shit,”_ I thought. _“He’s bleeding.”_

“Damn brat!” he retorted. “I’ll sue!”

Wait? Was he talking about _me_?

“If you keep this up, I’ll report about the money!” the woman threatened.

“All I have to do is say you did it on your own,” the drunk man said, “and then it’ll be over for you.”

“But I just did as I was told!”

“Who do you think I am?”

Actually, who the fuck was this guy? And what in the right mind led him to do this?

“Hey,” he continued to speak to the woman. “Make this statement to the cops. ‘This punk suddenly attacked me.’ Got it?”

I raised my brows in surprise, astonished by the accusation he just made up. The cops wouldn’t believe in that bullshit, right?

“You’re gonna learn what happens when you cross me,” the man grumbled. At this point, I don’t know if he was addressing me or the woman, but I know I was gonna be in deep shit if I didn’t do something.

“That’s bogus!” I shouted. “You fell on your own.”

“Shut up!” he demanded. “You’re done for.”

Eventually, the police showed up, telling us they received a complaint about the argument. When the man met with the two policemen, he persuaded the woman to explain what happened to him. Judging by the look on her face, she was left with no other choice.

“This young man suddenly attacked him,” she lied. “He shoved this gentleman to the ground, and he got injured.”

 _“No!”_ I mentally denied. _“You gotta hear my side of the story too!”_

However, it was all too late. Once the man made his statements and told the police to not mention his name in this case, one of them ordered the other to arrest me.

The next few weeks were hell and needless to say, not only did I nearly scare my parents half to death, Dad and Uncle Katsuya were beyond furious with me. Even though they were sure that I was framed, they just couldn’t believe that I went out of my way to get arrested. However, Pa did put some of the blame on me after the trial concluded.

“Maybe if you weren’t around a bunch of delinquents, this wouldn’t have happened,” he explained while we were in the car, on our way to get my haircut.

“I don’t act like them,” I refuted.

“But you look like one!”

I let out an exhausted sigh, wishing I didn’t have to go through this. Eventually, I earned Pa’s sympathy without even trying.

“Well, I was a hippie. Still am kind of,” he stated. “Listen, you can keep your mullet, but you need to keep it short. Got it?”

 _“Better than nothing, I guess,”_ I thought. I nearly cried when the finishing touch resulted in my hair reaching the middle of my neck, but still, it was better than nothing.

Since I was expelled from my previous school and was forced to transfer to another school, my parents decided to send me off to Tokyo, where I would live during my year of probation. The city wasn’t that far—it’s only a two-hour drive—but I still couldn’t believe I was gonna be away from my parents for a whole year. They were getting on my nerves a bit before the incident, but who the hell was going to take me in? I mean, in the eyes of society, I’m a criminal scumbag now.

The day of my departure arrived in no time, and eventually, I found myself at the train station, carrying a bag full of my belongings. I turned to my parents, who looked like they were ready to get this done and over with. I know they weren’t in the mood to talk, but I forgot something important already.

“So where am I going again?” I asked them.

“Yongen-Jaya,” Dad stated, handing me a piece of paper. “I knew you would forget already, so here’s the address.”

I glared at the paper, taking a few seconds to memorize the address written on it. I then read the name written above it: Sojiro Sakura. I feel like Dad had mentioned the name before, but it didn’t ring a bell.

“Who’s Sojiro Sakura?” I asked again, already feeling stupid for asking too many questions.

“Um,” Dad paused for a second. “An acquaintance, but he’s a cousin of a friend. We’ve met a few times so he’s no stranger to us.”

“How come I’ve never met him?” I seriously couldn’t recall a time where I met a man by that name.

“You have,” Pa told me, “but you were very young when you met him.”

Sounds about right. That usually happens to just about everyone. You meet a relative or a family friend that claims they used to babysit you when you were a baby; you can’t recall, but you just roll with it anyway.

We stood there in silence when I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The train wouldn’t come for another five or ten minutes, but waiting here felt like time was dragging into eternity. I was bored to death, but at the same time, I felt anxious too and I suddenly found myself twisting strands of my hair. I snapped outta it, but Dad realized that I was on edge.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?” he assumed.

There was no way I could lie in this situation, so I frowned and put my bag down momentarily.

“I’m sorry for ruining everything,” I sighed, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat.

“Hey, you can’t mope over this forever,” Pa said, trying to lighten the mood. “You still have to work toward your redemption.”

“Your pa is right, Ren,” Dad said, calling me by childhood nickname. “We still believe you were framed, but that doesn’t mean you should already quit. We want you to re-enter society with a clean slate.”

“That’s kinda funny,” I said sarcastically, “considering I never belonged in the first place.”

I thought one of them would criticize my remark and start lecturing me, but they both stood there looking somewhat disappointed in me. I think Pa understood what I meant, but I dunno if he ever wanted me to say it in person. _“We know,”_ I would imagine him saying. _“You’re an outcast and will always be one.”_

“Just… lie low, alright?” Dad asked me. “Cause any trouble in Tokyo and I’ll turn you in myself.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I sighed, watching the train make a stop at our station. I picked up my bag, knowing that it was time for me to go.

I hugged my parents goodbye, promising them that I would write to them. And even though they promised they would visit me at least once a month during my probation, I felt like nothing would ever be the same between us. No matter how many times I tried to reassure myself, I felt that right now they saw me as a walking disappointment. I needed to work toward redemption, but will society truly take me in?

Knowing this was gonna be a long journey, I pulled my Walkman outta my bag and popped one of my cassettes in— _Gentlemen Take Polaroids_ from the band Japan. It wasn’t one of my favorite albums, but it never failed to put me to sleep.

 

#

 

“Shibuya,” I heard the woman on the speakers announce as I got off the train. “This is Shibuya.”

Already I was homesick, but I immediately fell in love with the scenery of the city. I nearly got lost a few times on my way to Yongen-Jaya, but I couldn’t help but watch the crowds that passed by. Everywhere I turned, there were completely different people from different scenes of life: punk, goth, alternative, pop, they were everywhere. Even the adults here were different compared to my neighbors back home. Once I figure out where I’m going, maybe living in Tokyo won’t be so bad after all. That was until I realized I was all alone in this.

When I finally reached the Shibuya Crossing, the lights flashed green and everyone started walking at once, going on with their lives. Within the first seconds of the crossing, I nearly bumped into several people, but steered clear and tried paying attention to the street signs up ahead while listening to my cassette tape. However, I stopped in the middle of the crosswalk when I realized that the tape was messing up. It was playing “Burning Bridges,” but repeated the same lyrics.

 _“It’s all behind me now,”_ the singer sang once again. _“It’s all behind me now.”_

I pried the Walkman open and took the tape out, and put it back in to make sure it would work again. But when I tried to press the play button, nothing happened.

 _“Broken already?”_ I thought.  _“I just got this last Christmas!”_

I suddenly realized that something else was happening when I checked my surroundings. All around me, the people of Shibuya slowed down in their tracks and stopped, and the murmurs of the crowd faded into silence. Everything stopped as if someone froze time. Could I have done this? No, there was no way. This must be a dream.

When I look ahead of me, however, I saw a blue fire erupt in front of the crowd. I was starting to panic, but I couldn’t run away for some reason. I stood there, observing the fire ahead of me that I felt held a demonic presence. As I continued to stare at it, a sinister-looking grin formed within the fire and revealed a face that looked similar to mine, but it possessed golden eyes. _“Is that me?”_ I thought as I stared at the face. _“Is this a dream?”_

I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them back up, surprised to see that the people around me were walking again. Even my Walkman was working again. I shouldn’t be confused about what happened, but even if it was just a dream, it felt real—too real. I wanted to think about it more, but I decided to forget about it when I remembered that I still needed to get to Sojiro Sakura’s house.

 

#

 

After a few more turns or so, I ended up walking into one of the back alleys but managed to find Sakura-san’s house. Nobody was home at the time, however, but the mailman told me that Sakura-san was at work. Coincidentally, he worked at a coffee shop that I passed by earlier called Leblanc. The place was small, so I didn’t really notice it at first.

The place seemed a bit bigger on the inside when I came in, and it was cozy as hell too. I nearly teared up when the coffee’s aroma slithered underneath my nose, overwhelming me with a feeling of nostalgia. This was the same coffee that Dad made in the morning before I would head off to school. _“I think I’m home,”_ I thought. However, the moment was interrupted when I heard a man murmur something.

“So you’re Tatsuya and Jun’s son, right?”

I snapped outta it and saw a man before me, who appeared to be in his mid-to-late forties. His hair was long and tied back and he had a chinstrap beard that had been growing for a mile long. His work attire was nothing special; he only wore an apron over his casual clothing, which consisted of a pastel pink dress shirt, khakis, and white loafers.

“Is Sakura-san here?” I inquired, even though I was sure that he was right in front of me.

“Yeah… I’m Sojiro Sakura,” he introduced himself. “You’ll be in my custody over the next year.”

As if my parents and court hadn’t told me this a million times already.

“Follow me,” he said.

Together we walked toward the end of the cafe but eventually began to walk up a pair of stairs that led to an attic. It was spacious but cluttered with all sorts of shit. Jesus, I know an attic is meant for storage but does he ever have the time to organize this shit?

“This is your room,” he blatantly said. “I’ll at least give you sheets for your bed.”

He turned to me, already knowing that something was up with me.

“You look like you wanna say something,” he grumbled.

Oh, boy I do I wanna.

“Yeah…” I chuckled nervously. “It’s kinda cluttered.”

“Well, it’s on you to clean the rest,” he told me.

Well, there wasn’t that much to clean up, but the mess still overwhelmed me.

“Anyways,” he continued, “I’ll be leaving after I lock up this place each day. That means you’ll be alone at night, but don’t do anything stupid. I’ll throw you out if you cause any trouble.”

I was surprised he was acting cold toward me, but then I remembered I was falsely charged with assault and would now be perceived as a troubled delinquent by everyone around me. Great. Coincidentally, Sakura-san brought up my whole situation again and reviewed it. Yes, I was trying to protect that woman. No, I did not hurt that bastard of a man, but he still sued me for a crime I did not commit. Yeah, I was expelled, but I don’t wanna talk about that. No, my parents didn’t move me out here for being a pain in the ass. Yes, I know I should shut my mouth sometimes. Yeah, I know I gotta behave. I still can’t believe that I gotta stay here for a whole damn year though…

“Cause any problems and you’ll be sent straight to juvie,” Sakura-san stated.

“I know,” I nodded. “Dad told me that part already. Said he would turn me in himself.”

“At least I know you pay attention now,” he said. “Anyway, we’ll be going to Shujin tomorrow.”

“Shujin?”

He looked at me as if I were a dumbass.

“Shujin Academy,” he stated. “That’s where you’ll be attending school. We’ll introduce ourselves properly to the staff there.”

Great, I suck at introductions, and none of this was gonna be easy now.

“There’s rarely a place that’ll accept someone like you, you know,” Sakura-san said.

After our talk, Sakura-san went back downstairs while I spent the rest of my afternoon tidying up the place. After taking out the trash and organizing some shit, I was able to see the floorboard and mopped it. I found a feather duster afterward and cleaned up the dust in the place, even though I should’ve done it in the first place.

I remembered that my parents sent a big ass box of my belongings to this place some days before, so I brought it out and opened it up to see what they sent to me. Clothes, personal necessities, some of my favorite cassettes, my record player, some of my vinyl records, and at the bottom of the box there were two handwritten notes. I picked them up and skimmed over them, noticing that my parents had written them for me. They each read the following:

 

_Hey, kiddo—_

_Do good in school, join a club, cut some slack, and stay in your own lane. Most importantly, please don’t get yourself killed._

 

_Sincerely,_

_Your pa, Jun_

 

 

_Ren—_

_I know that being away from home is stressing you out right now, but don’t worry about it too much. You’ll be home in no time—if you stay committed to changing your ways. No hard feelings, son, but this is for the best. Be grateful that I’m not your Uncle Katsuya. I would’ve taken a golf club and hit you—in the balls._

 

_From:_

_Your dear father, Tatsuya Suou_

 

Good to know that the incident hasn’t changed Dad’s sense of humor. I mean, Uncle Katsuya was a little harsh at times, but sometimes Dad would over-exaggerate things to get his joke across.

“What the heck?” I heard a voice behind me, who turned out to be Sakura-san when I turned around. “I heard you making all sorts of noise up here but I didn’t think you were cleaning.”

“The mess was bothering me,” I said, getting up off the ground.

He looked around the room for a moment, observing the cleanliness.

“Actually,” he continued. “the place doesn’t look too bad. Now, why don’t you go to bed for tonight? You don’t have anything better to be doing, right?”

“I guess,” I shrugged. “I just got here.”

“Whatever,” Sakura-san said, “I’m going to close up shop and get out of here myself. I won’t be looking after you if you get sick from staying up too late, got that?”

“Yessir,” I nodded. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I stayed up past eleven.

Sakura-san left shortly and closed up the shop; already, I got changed and headed to bed. I was hoping to fall asleep the second I hit the hay, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident. Even though it happened just recently, I felt like I’ve been imprisoned for far too long.

 _“Arrest…”_ I thought. _“Trial… criminal record…”_

I couldn’t just let it go. Why did all of this happen to me?

Since I wasn’t falling asleep anytime soon, I brought my Walkman to bed and inserted Yellow Magic Orchestra’s _BGM_ , hoping that the music would help me pass out. However, just like earlier, the tape player was spazzing out again, looping part of the track over and over.

 _“What the hell is wrong with this thing?”_ I thought, taking the tape back out. _“I haven’t dropped it or anything.”_

As expected, when I put the cassette tape back in and pressed the play button, the track resumed and wasn’t looping anymore. Once I was done with that, I started listening to the tape and fell asleep right away.

I had a weird dream that night. Instead of dreaming that somebody loved me, I dreamed about being in a prison cell. In the dream, I was accompanied by twin wardens and a man named Igor, whose nose went on for about a mile. He told me it wasn’t a dream, but that I was somewhere between dream and reality. He spoke of rehabilitation and freedom and kept pestering me with questions I didn’t know how to answer. It was a strange dream, but I’m sure it wasn’t coincidental.


	2. wake up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let ryuji say FUCK
> 
> also ty to everyone so far that has check out this fic !! :-) i do not have a posting schedule set up yet but once i get through with finals and everything, i'll figure out a plan. for the time being, i will try to update this fic at least once a week ! i'm also working on an original story too so please be patient with me
> 
> and now back to your regularly scheduled 80s au

I spent most of my Sunday getting ready for the new school year, where I would attend Shujin Academy as a second-year student. Sakura-san informed me that the school is located in the Aoyama district of Tokyo, so the drive there is kinda far—at least to the standards of city people. He also said he would drive me to the school today instead of boarding the train, but he sounded kinda embarrassed about it.

“Sheesh,” he sighed. “Men aren’t usually allowed in my passenger seat.”

I dunno what the remark referred to, but I just rolled with it.

Traffic was slow and heavy that day, but we managed to make it to the school on time. Before we entered the building, Sakura-san stopped walking and turned to me to give me yet another short lecture about staying outta trouble.

“Do me a favor and behave yourself, all right?” he kindly asked. “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t care what happens to you. Just don’t cause me any trouble.”

Excuse me, what?

The statement was a little crazy, but I wasn’t in the right position to back talk, so I said nothing as we walked into the school. The moment we entered the principal’s office, a shitload of paperwork was laid out for Sakura-san to fill out. While he was busy with that, the principal just stared at me like I was some damn alien. I already forgot his last name, but I know that it was just as humongous as his appearance. He was trying hard to intimidate me, but to me, he looks like a giant egg with a Dorito chip for a nose. I didn’t want to set a terrible impression already, so I excused myself to go to the bathroom, only to break down laughing once I closed the bathroom door behind me. After I calmed down from my quick laughing fit, I returned to the office where Sakura-san finished filling out the last document.

“To reiterate, just so we’re clear,” the principal’s deep, booming voice spoke to me, “you will immediately be expelled if you cause any problems.”

He then proceeded to tell me he was a bit hesitant at first to accept my transfer, but he went on to state I would behave myself here at school and would learn discipline. He then said that if I were somehow expelled again, there would be no place for me to go.

“Keep that in mind,” he said.

I already do in a way. Since the incident, I’ve been anxious about living. According to my calm and collective exterior, I don’t seem worried about anything; being falsely accused has taken a toll on my mental state, however, leading me to worry about every single thing that I do.

“This is the teacher in charge of your class,” the principal introduced the young woman that stood aside from him. Nothing about her seemed out of the ordinary, but her hairstyle looked similar to mine before I got my haircut.

“I’m Sadayo Kawakami,” she stated, handing me a card. “Here’s your student ID.”

When I picked it up and got a glimpse of it, I wanted to cry; my hair was chopped poorly and it made me look like an absolute clown. It wasn’t a horrible haircut, but now I had to worry about kids at school calling me a faggot or some shit.

“Be sure to read the school rules,” she reminded me. “Any violations will send you straight to the guidance office.”

And if I cause any problems, it’s the end for me. Got it.

After the meeting was done and over with, Sakura-san and I went home for the day. Unfortunately, the course of traffic did not change and we even got caught up in a traffic jam at one point. I wasn’t sure if this was normal or not, but the nonsense was driving Sakura-san nuts.

“Damn traffic’s not moving at all,” he cursed. “You’re taking the train starting tomorrow.”

“All right,” I replied.

“How was it, though? The school, I mean,” he addressed. “Think you can manage?”

I honestly wasn’t too sure. I could establish a new clique of friends or get eaten alive for all I know. It was a city school after all, so I’m gonna expect the unexpected.

“Eh,” I shrugged, “we’ll see.”

“Well, you were expelled once already,” he said. “To think you’d re-enroll at a different one. I mean, it’s not like anyone will be sympathetic with you.”

I didn’t want to remember that, but thanks a lot anyways.

Meanwhile, on the radio, a broadcaster announced that there was a freak accident at Shibuya Station. Come to think about it, didn’t some girl on the train from yesterday say there was another train accident?

“Another accident?” Sakura-san groaned. “So that’s why it’s been so crowded lately. There’s been a lot of those lately.”

“How many?” I curiously asked.

He didn’t really give me an answer, but just shrugged. I probably would’ve said—or done—the same thing.

We didn’t return to the cafe until later that evening, where I was ready to pass the hell out. Sakura-san even told me to go upstairs to my room, but he didn’t want me to go to sleep yet. He said he wanted to give me something, but I had no idea what he wanted to give me already beside another lecture. I surprised, however, when he pulled out a book and put it down on my dresser.

“It’s a diary,” he explained. “Make sure you write in it. I’m obligated to report on you, which is why I’m having you record your daily activities.”

After that, he told me to go to bed and he left the store right away. I wasn’t sure what to write at first, but after I found some pens, I decided to write this entry for the day.

 

_10th of April, 1988 — Sunday_

_Akira Kurusu is my name. Not a punk, but society says I might as well be one. I do love some Plasmatics if I say so myself._

 

Underneath the diary entry, I drew a shitty doodle of the principal, which again was nothing but an angry-looking egg with stubby legs and arms. I didn’t know what to call it, so I just wrote “sucks eggs” next to the drawing.

When I closed my diary and put on my pajamas, I was ready to go to bed until I heard a telephone ring. There wasn’t one in my room, so I went downstairs to check where the noise was coming from. I eventually came across a yellow telephone that stood on the counter and walked up to it, picking up to talk to whoever was calling.

“Yo, it’s me,” a familiar voice said.

“Who is this?” I asked for a name.

“You forgot my voice already? It’s Sakura,” he paused for a moment, where I heard him whisper to a friend or something. “Hey, uhhh, I closed up shop, but I forgot to flip the sign to ‘closed.’ Can you go out real quick and flip the sign for me?”

“Got it,” I replied.

“Okay then,” he said. “I’m leaving you in charge of the door sign.”

When I was through with the errand, I walked upstairs and went straight to bed. However, I was having trouble sleeping again and grabbed my Walkman and one of my cassette tapes to help me out. Before I could fall asleep though, my Walkman starting freaking out again and was pulling the loop shit again, repeating one set of lyrics until I took the tape out and put it back it. It played normally after that, helping me drift off into a deep sleep.

Like the many nights before, I forgot about all my troubles and dreamt that somebody was in love with me. Dreams like that would usually make me depressed, but being asleep was my only coping mechanism for the time being. Maybe it wasn’t healthy when I took naps all the time back at home after the trial, but I wasn’t sure how else I was supposed to deal with it. I thought about getting my hands on some cigarettes or some blades, but then I thought about Pa. I didn’t want him to go through anymore more pain that I created.

 

#

 

When I woke up this morning and finished getting ready, I almost ran off to school but was flagged down by Sakura-san, who offered me curry for breakfast. It was a little weird, but for the first time since I came here, I felt welcomed. Since I didn’t eat dinner last night, I gladly accepted the meal and sat down, nearly scarfing it down until I realized how spicy it was. The spice was strong, but the flavors of the curry nearly drove me to tears. _“It’s just like how Pa makes it,”_ I thought. When I was done eating, I thanked Sakura-san for the meal.

“Well, you better hurry on out,” he told me. “You’re gonna be late if you get lost, country boy.”

I did so without a second thought, racing down the backstreets until I was at the train station. Once I entered the train car, the rumors I heard about the subway were confirmed to me: there were so many people crammed in here. _“How the hell can people put up with this?”_ I thought as I looked out the window.

After the first train ride came to a stop, I arrived at Shibuya Station and walked around searching for the Ginza Line, which would hopefully take me to the Aoyama district. There were so many signs guiding people to different places so I couldn’t find my way until I found Exit 8, which lead me to the Station Square outside. Lost again, I went up to an officer nearby and asked him for directions on how to get to my destination. Ahead of him, he pointed to the white Teikyu building and told me I would find the Ginza Line there. I thanked him and went on with my day.

I boarded the Ginza Line without a hassle and made it to Aoyama in one piece—surprisingly, but when I left the train station, it started raining outside. The rainfall wasn’t too heavy, but since I can’t afford to show up in school drenched in rainwater, I ran for the closest cover that would shelter me from the rain until it would pass by. While I waited, I pulled my Walkman out of my school bag and a cassette tape—Oingo Boingo’s _Only a Lad_. I popped it in and expected the cassette player to flip out again, but it surprisingly didn’t. As I listened to my music, I saw some students pass by, who I assumed attended Shujin as well.

A girl eventually walked into the area I was standing in, brushing off rain that might’ve gotten onto her clothes. I couldn’t see what she looked like since she had the hoodie of her windbreaker up, but she then pulled it down when she thought her hair was safe. Her blonde hair came down, which were tied into two bushy ponytails while her forehead was covered by her wispy bangs. However, I was captivated by the beauty of her face; soothing green eyes, baby pink lips, long but adorable nose. I was left speechless, even in my mind.

She soon realized I was standing next to her, smiling at me. Still unsure what to say, I turned away and stared at the Walkman that I held in my right hand. We waited patiently for the rain to pass, but then a white car pulled up to us and the driver rolled down their window. It was a man dressed in a tracksuit or something, whose chin was a mile wide. And I thought my haircut was bad, but this guy had a medieval look going on while some of his curls were sticking out. It looks like he hasn’t been shaving either.

“Good morning,” he greeted the girl beside me. “You want me to give you a ride to school? You gotta be late.”

“Sure, thank you,” she said, walking toward the car. When she got in, the man then noticed me.

“Do you need a lift too?” he asked me.

I couldn’t register what he said to me for a moment, but I then waved at him and told him “Nah.” Before he drove off, I saw that the girl seemed to be in some distress. I was a bit worried at first, but then I remembered that it was the first day of school. Everybody’s gotta be like that.

In the distance, I heard the footsteps of a boy sprinting toward the car. When he realized that he was too late, he stopped in his tracks and cussed out at the car in the distance.

“Dammit!” he cursed under his breath. “Fuck that pervert teacher!”

“Pervert teacher?” I asked, which I also found funny since the track that the Walkman was playing was “Little Girls.” The boy heard my remark and turned to me.

Already, I saw that he was like me in some ways. He had some crazy-looking hair—it looks like he bleached it—has his ears pierced and a stud in his nose, his hair again was frizzy, wore a Boowy t-shirt underneath his school jacket, and had some combat boots on. “ _I think we’re gonna get along just fine,”_ I thought to myself. Like me, however, he had a bit of an attitude—maybe not a bit though.

“What do you want?” he spat. “You plannin’ on rattin’ me out to Kamoshida?”

“Kamoshida?” I asked, unsure what he was talking about.

“Huh?” the boy uttered, now just as confused as me. “In that car just now. That was Suguru Kamoshida. He does whatever the hell he wants. Who the fuck does he think he is—the king of the castle? Don’t you agree?”

What was going on? What is he rambling on about? Whatever it was, I’m gonna pretend I know shit.

“Which castle?” I joked.

“Uh, it’s just a sayin’,” the boy replied. He then realized that something wasn’t right about me. “Wait, you don’t know Kamoshida? Are you for real? You’re from Shujin, right?”

“You go to Shujin, too?” I inquired.

“What…? No other high school’s got a uniform like this.”

He took a moment to observe my jacket, specifically my pin that was engraved with the number two.

“A second-year, huh,” he said. “We’re in the same grade then. Never seen you before though.”

“I’m a transfer student,” I stated to clear up the confusion.

“Huh,” he said, “then no wonder you don’t know him.”

We then heard the rain starting to clear up, while beams of sunlight began pouring out of the sky.

“This rain ain’t too bad now,” he said. “We better hurry up or we’ll be late.”

Before we headed off, I suddenly felt light-headed for a moment and pressed my fingers against my temple. Whatever was causing this sudden headache, my classmate felt it too.

“Uuugh, my fuckin’ head hurts,” he groaned. “Dammit… I wanna go home.”

Me too, pal.

For the rest of the way to school, I followed the blond and we walked into an alleyway, which I assumed was a shortcut. While on the way there, I thought I heard a noise behind me. But when I turned around, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then, I guess I was wrong.

“WHA—” I heard the boy yell ahead of me.

To see what the commotion was about, I continued walking and eventually met up with him. I wasn’t sure why he stood there, frozen in time, but when I looked at the building ahead of me, it wasn’t the school. Ahead of us was a gigantic castle, one that came right out of medieval Europe. I dunno why it was here, but I was already demanding an explanation for this.

“We didn’t… come the wrong way though,” the blond stated, turning to look back at the alleyway. “Yeah, this should be right.”

It should. The sign itself even stated that this is Shujin Academy—or wherever it was.

“What’s going on here?” I wondered.

“I guess we’ll just have to go in and ask,” the boy assumed.

We both agreed and headed for the school—or castle—to see what was going on. Hopefully, this is just a school festival or a prank, but in the words of David Byrne, “Well, how did I get here?”


	3. you've got everything now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is super overdue :-( finals are almost over tho, so hopefully i'll be back on schedule in no time. in the meanwhile, here's chapter three !

All I could think about while walking into the school—castle I mean—was what the hell happened to us on our way here. We didn’t make a wrong turn or stray away from our path, and the sign itself said this was supposed to be Shujin Academy. And up until now, I thought the first day was gonna be just like any normal day. But now here I was, at this mysterious castle with a vulgar punk kid.

We stopped walking once we reached the main hall; the interior looked just like how I imagined it to be. A grand chandelier and several other lamps were hanging above us, two rows of stairs led up to a door that probably led to another room, and the room was so, _so_ huge. The walls were painted with browns and greens, and the design of the floor was a checker pattern, some of it covered up by crimson red carpets.

I snapped myself out of it, realizing that the decorations were distracting me when I heard my classmate mumble something.

“Th-that’s weird…” I heard him.

“Where are we then?” I asked, wondering if he figured it out yet. However, when he turned to me, he still had a puzzled look on his face.

“This SHOULD be the school,” he answered, sounding totally unsure about where we were. “I think… the sign was for the school, right?”

“Yeah, it was,” I recalled. “Even before we came here, I saw another street sign saying this was the way.”

“Right?!” he exclaimed. “You saw it too!”

Just then, we heard a pair of heavy footsteps walk toward us. When we turned around to see what it was, my classmate nearly jumped when he saw that it was a castle guard. Because of its massive size, I nearly shit my pants but tried to remain calm. The guard nearly scared the living daylights outta Blondie too.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, “you freaked me out…”

Assuming that the guard standing before him was a student from school, he asked them about this “costume” and waited for them to make conversation with us. A moment or two passed, but there was still no answer. It was then that Blondie was feeling irritated by this awkward silence.

“C’mon, man,” he bickered, “don’t stand there. Say somethin’.”

Another guard came out from the shadows, gathering around us with a presence that made us feel unwelcomed. I dunno if they were aggressive by default or if Blondie already pissed them off, but something told me that we had to get outta here.

“What’s goin’ on?” Blondie asked, trying to understand what we were getting ourselves into.

I didn’t know what to say, so I stood there riddled with anxiety as the first guard moved a few inches forward toward my classmate. He then finally realized that these weren’t students from Shujin.

“Shit’s real,” he said, still not looking nervous. The other guard moved forward with the other, surrounding us at this point.

“We gotta run!” Blondie hollered at me. “Stop standin’ around and start fuckin’ run!”

Not wasting a single second, we began to make a run for it, but it wasn’t long until two more guards emerged from the darkness and stopped us in our tracks. _“No,”_ I worried.

“Ugh, what’s with these shitheads?!” Blondie cursed. Right after he mildly berated them, one of them pushed him down to the ground with his sturdy metal shield, causing him to yelp in pain. He didn’t appear to be in serious pain, but it was an ugly site to see.

“Fuuuck!” he cursed again. “Y-You’re gonna break my bones, dammit!”

I tried to step in to see if he was alright, but when I took a step forward, the next thing I knew was that a guard butted their shield against the back of my head and I blacked out. I fell into another deep slumber, drifting through the dreamless void.

 

#

 

“Hey!” I heard a voice call to me. “Wake up!”

When I opened my eyes, I saw that Blondie was sitting there right in front of me, checking to see if I was okay. I sat up slowly, groaning in agony when the pain from the blow to my head started to resurface. The pain is unbearable; it’s as if I’m suffering from a migraine. I wanted to rest for another moment or two, but when I looked up and saw that we were in a prison cell, I remembered that we were far from freedom now.

“You all right, man?” Blondie asked, sounding concerned.

“Yup,” I lied. “What about you?”

“Yeah, more or less,” he said, not sounding too thrilled while he inspected the cell. “This though… looks like this ain’t no dream.”

Blondie then ran up to the cell door, banging furiously on the steel bars in his attempt to attract someone’s attention.

“Hey, let us outta here!” he demanded. “I know one of you punks are out there!”

Shortly, he gave up and walked back to me, still trying to figure out what was going on.

“Dammit, where the hell are we?! Is this some kinda TV set…?”

“Hell if I know,” I shrugged.

Just out of nowhere, we heard a man’s blood-curdling scream in the distance. I nearly jumped, realizing that we were probably in danger if we didn’t get out of here soon.

“Wh-what the hell was that just now…?” my classmate stuttered. nearly jumping when he heard another scream of pain. “You’re shittin’ me, right…?”

Wherever we are, I hope to God that we weren’t locked up in one of those underground torture chambers. Like he said, this had to be a joke, right? This is just a TV set, right? We’re not in any real trouble, right?

For a short while, Blondie and I searched the cell to see if there was a way to escape. Tried searching around the beds… no luck. Inspected the walls… there’s no crack big enough to let us squeeze through. Moved barrels around to see if there was a hidden door or something… nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just then, we heard a group walking toward our cell and we walked to the bars, looking to see who it was.

“Be glad that your punishment has been decided upon,” we heard a guard speak. “Your charge is ‘unlawful entry.’ Thus, you will be sentenced to death.”

Are you fucking shitting me? Okay, as scared as I am right now, they have to be bluffing.

“Say what?!” Blondie blurted. Behind the guards, I saw a man walking up to us, but I couldn’t see who it was for a moment. The moment he opening his mouth, however, he sounded awfully familiar.

“No one’s allowed to do as they please in my castle,” he said, finally appearing before us.

Before us was a man of average height, wearing only a cape with hearts on it, a miniature crown, a pair of loafers, and a tiny pink swimsuit. Aside from that awful getup, he was mad ugly; his curly bob was all over the place, it looked like he hasn’t shaved in weeks, and his chin was a mile wide like… wait… is this who I think it is?

“Wait…” my classmate realized him. “Is that you, Kamoshida?”

Wait? The same teacher that was in that car earlier? Why was he here and why the hell was he dressed up like that?

“I thought it would be some petty thief,” Kamoshida said, speaking in some weird echo-y voice, “but to think it’d be you, Sakamoto… are you trying to disobey me again? It looks like you haven’t learned your lesson at all, huh?”

Disobey? Lesson? What was this guy referring to? I know Blondie mentioned that the guy was a pervert or something like that, so did he called him out or something?

“And you brought a friend this time,” he said, glaring at me for a moment. “You can’t do anything for yourself.”

“This ain’t funny, you asshole!” Sakamoto raised his voice, banging on the steel bars again. Kamoshida, of course, was not going to put up with his attitude.

“Is that how you speak to a king?” he inquired. “It seems you don’t understand the position you’re in at all. Because not only did you sneak into my damn castle, you committed the crime of insulting me—the king! The punishment for that is death.”

I raised my brows in fear when the realization finally hit me: wherever we were, this guy had real authority over these guards, and he meant business. Whatever it may be, he was to punish us with the death sentence.

“It’s time for an execution!” he announced, pointing to Sakamoto. “Take him out!”

Sakamoto begged for him to stop the execution, but the guards entered the cell without giving in to his request. Once one of them got near him, he ran up toward the guard and knocked him down to the ground, telling me that it was time for our escape. Before he could even take one more step, another guard took a few steps toward and punched Sakamoto in the abdominal area, knocking him down the ground as he groaned in agony. I was about to help him up, but he begged me to leave him behind.

“Just go! Get outta here…! These guys are serious.”

“Oh, running away, are we?” I heard Kamoshida snickered. “What a heartless friend you are.”

“He ain’t a friend…” Sakamoto stated, who then turned his head to glare at me. “C’mon! Hurry up and fuckin’ go!”

“What’s the matter? Too scared to run away?” the man mocked me. I then heard him mutter something under his breath, but I didn’t know what was happening until Kamoshida walked up to Sakamoto and lifted him up off the ground, suddenly beating the living shit out of him.

“Take this!” he said as he swung his fist into his face.

He punched him a few more times, degrading him until Sakamoto dropped to the ground. When the beatdown as over, Kamoshida gave him a sadistic glance and spat on him.

“Where’d your energy from earlier go?” he inquired. “I mean, that probably doesn’t matter now anyway. A peasant like you isn’t worth beating. I’ll have you killed right now.”

Knowing that I couldn’t just stand here and watch Sakamoto suffer, I stood my ground and shouted at the bastard.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?!”

“Whaaat?” Kamoshida slurred his words. “Don’t you dare fucking tell me you don’t know who I am.”

He got up all in my face suddenly, smirking like total jackass.

“That look in your eyes fucking irritates me!” he said, suddenly kicking me back to the cell wall. I tried to get back up and run to Sakamoto, but the guards rushed to my side and pinned me to the grimy wall of the cell. I was struggling for as long as I could, but when I heard Sakamoto panicking, I felt like it was too late to save him now…

_This is truly an unjust game…_

Wait… who was that girl talking to me? When I looked up, all I saw was a blue butterfly in all this mess. Whoever or whatever it was, I think it was calling to me.

_Your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you…_

Another voice began talking upon me, but this time it belonged to a man.

 _What’s the matter…?_ I heard him. _Are you simply going to watch? Are you forsaking him to save yourself? Death awaits him if you do nothing. Was your previous decision a mistake then?_

My previous decision? When I decided to stop that drunk man from sexually assaulting some woman?

“It wasn’t,” I whispered.

At this point, a guard was holding Sakamoto by only his neck and ready to kill him, but I wasn’t going to… oh, oh God. Why do I have a headache?

 _Very well…_ the voice continued. _I have headed your resolve._

Is this a migraine? Oh, God, oh God! Whatever this is, it’s crushing my head and I can’t stop screaming.

 _Vow to me._ the voice commanded. _I am thou, thou art I… Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage!_

I let out another screech of pain as the man continued with his declaration.

Show me the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!

My pain subsided immediately, along with the old me: an utter coward and naive soul. It was this moment that I had been reborn and was destined to become something better…

“Execute him!” Kamoshida ordered the guard, desperate to see Sakamoto’s blood spill.

“I will stop you,” I said, feeling more confident than I had ever been in my life. I somehow didn’t expect him to pay any attention to me, but suddenly he turned to me as the guard put Sakamoto down, gasping for air once he was released from the chokehold.

“What was that, you punk?” Kamoshida inquired, speaking to me with an attitude. “You desired to be killed that much…? Fine!”

Immediately after finishing his sentence, a guard bashed his shield onto my glass, knocking my glasses off which would hit the ground and break. I don’t really need them, but it pissed me off. As one of the guards was about to slice me in half with his sword, a sudden giant burst of energy filled the room and subsided within seconds. Nothing happened that much, but I felt something on my face. When I raised my hands and touched the area around my eyes, I realized that there was a mask on me.

 _“Is this… my power?”_ I thought.

While I took the mask off, it didn’t budge until I pulled on it with force, peeling my skin off with it. It was hurting like hell, but the voice within me called upon me to take it off. Within seconds, I ripped the mask off as pools and trails of blood rolled down my face and a mystical being came down to blow the guards away. It was then I saw Kamoshida coward away while Sakamoto sat there and stared at me, his eyes filled with fear and uncertainty.

 _“I am the pillager of twilight—’Arsene!’”_ I heard the voice call to me again, which belonged to the being that stood aside me. 

“What the…?” Sakamoto muttered, only to remain speechless again.

 _“I am the rebel’s soul that resides within you,”_ Arsene continues. _“If you so desire, I shall consider granting you the power to break through this crisis.”_

Rebel’s soul… desire… power…

“Give me your power,” I commanded.

 _“Very well…”_ Arsene said.

“Who the hell are you?!” Kamoshida yelled, likely at Arsene—whatever he actually was. “Guards! Start by killing that one!”

His minions melted into a puddle and reformed into monstrous beings, while Kamoshida bragged about how we were no match for our opponents.

 _“Not today…”_ I thought. Yesterday, I was running away from rebellion. From today onward, I will welcome it with open arms.


	4. deviation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is for the gays :-)
> 
> also i have decided to try and post at least one chapter every two weeks ! i might plan on doing one chapter per week eventually, but for now i'm going to be realistic and not burn myself out. 
> 
> finals have ended so i will try to write as much as i can in advance during the winter break :-)
> 
> anyway, enjoy this new chapter !

After I defeated the servants, Sakamoto tackled Kamoshida to the ground and grabbed the keys as we made a run for it out of the cell. We locked it while Kamoshida was still inside, leaving him unable to deal with us himself as he cursed us out. We ignored him while Sakamoto discussed what happened just now.

“What was that just now?! I mean, look at your clothes…!”

I didn’t understand what he was talking about at first, but when I looked carefully at myself, I realized that I was wearing a different set of clothes. Long black dress coat, a high-necked waistcoat of some sort, jogger-style pants that matched my coat, some snazzy-looking shoes, and red gloves. My mask remained intact on my face, to keep my identity a secret. Suddenly, the mask disappeared and so did my fancy getup, transforming back into my school uniform. 

“Whoa!” Sakamoto hollered. “They went back to normal!”

Kamoshida suddenly slammed his fists onto the bars, cursing at us again.

“Anyway, this is fuckin’ nuts!” Sakamoto continued, referring back to the whole castle situation. “Let’s scram now. You lead the way!”

Once he headed off, Sakamoto hurled the keys into the stream nearby, buying us more time to escape from this place. We walked down a long way for a bit, heading toward a few dead ends and turning around. This place wasn’t much of a maze or whatever, but I wasn’t sure how we were going to get outta here in one piece—or alive. 

“All that execution stuff…” Sakamoto mentioned as we were walking down another path. “Is he serious?”

“Well…” I said, “one of the guards nearly choked you to death.”

“Shit, you’re right! I already forgot about that.”

When we reached another dead end, we walked into one of the vacant cells and found a crawl space in the wall, wide enough for us to crawl through. I went in first, making sure there wasn’t a trap at the end of the tunnel. Once we emerged from the crawl space, we continued our escape shortly before I heard some footsteps up ahead.

“Hey, we gotta hide!” Sakamoto panicked, pulling me down by my shoulder to hide me behind a pile of barrels. When we assumed that the coast was clear, we started to head down another hall and began to run up a spiral staircase. We went up maybe only three floors, but by the time we reached the door at the end, my classmate was panting like crazy.

“I-Is this… the exit?” he gasped. 

“I hope so,” I said. 

“Whatever… let’s get the hell outta this place.”

When I barged through the door, I only saw another path ahead of us while I heard a guy screaming up ahead. I wasn’t sure what the commotion was about, but Sakamoto and I both concluded that we weren’t the only prisoners here. Eventually, we came to another dead end.

“What the hell,” Sakamoto groaned. “How the hell’re we supposed to get outta here?”

“Hey…! You there!” we heard a voice call out to us. 

I nearly froze in my tracks for a second, almost thinking that one of the guards caught up to us until I heard the voice again.

“Blondie! Frizzy Hair!” it called to us again. “Look over here!”

When we turned around and looked into one of the cells, we saw that there was a strange small creature locked up behind bars. Whatever it was, it looked like a cat dressed up as a bandit, but it didn’t intimidate me as much since it was wearing a bright yellow fanny pack and matching bandana around his neck. It did manage to scare the crap outta Sakamoto though.

“What the fuck is this thing?!” he yelled. 

“Get me outta here!” it pleaded, pointing to something at the side. “The key’s right there!”

“Well, we’re trying to get the hell outta here, too,” Sakamoto replied. “I mean, look at you! You totally look like an enemy too!”

“I’m locked up here, so how can I be your enemy?!”

“It’s got a point, dude,” I stepped into the conversation, defending the creature. “I mean… it’s impossible”

I then turned to the… cat, who was still begging us to release it from the cell. 

“Quiet down,” I whispered, hearing footsteps stomp in the distance. “I hear them catching up.”

“How the hell are we gonna get outta here though?” Sakamoto questioned us. 

“Let me out.” the cat requested. “I’ll take you there! You don’t want to get caught and get executed, right?”

We absolutely needed the help, but I wasn’t sure if I were to trust it yet.

“You better not be lying,” I said.

After a bit of an argument, I grabbed the keys and opened the jail cell, releasing the cat-like creature as it skipped its way out of the cell. 

“Now, where’s the exit, you monster cat?!” Sakamoto mocked the creature, already pissing it off.

“Don’t call me a cat!” it hissed. “I am Morgana!”

“You wanna be locked up again?!”

Left with no other choice, we followed Morgana—who seemed to know the layout of this place quite a bit. I later found out that we were able to cross a drawbridge by pulling the jaw of a statue nearby—which had a disturbing resemblance to Kamoshida. Shortly after we crossed the bridge, we crossed paths with one of the guards and fought them off. By we, I mean me and Morgana. The cat—or whatever it was—possessed the same power as me. They told me it was called a Persona and talked about it as if I already knew what I was doing. Honestly, I didn’t. Sakamoto didn’t understand a word Morgana said either, but he was more frustrated than I am.

“This crap doesn’t make any sense!” he said. 

“Can’t you just sit still and listen for once, Blondie?!” Morgana retorted, already picking up that fact that he wasn’t a good listener.

“Don’t call me Blondie! The name’s Ryuji.”

I chuckled for a moment, recognizing that the name sounded familiar.

“Like Ryuichi Sakamoto?”

He turned to me and for the first time since I met him not so long ago, he smiled.

“Yeah,” he replied. “My parents love him.”

After another brief conversation with Morgana, we continued our journey in hopes of finding the exit. Morgana remarked that it wasn’t too far from us now, but while on our way out, Ryuji sensed that something strange was going on.

“Hold on a sec!”

He turned away from us and walked toward a prison cell, which was occupied by a volleyball player who was on the ground, limping. Ryuji stated that he probably has seen that guy before, but he couldn’t remember at a time like this. Morgana urged him to get going already, but he suggested that we needed to hold on for a moment. 

We stood idle for too long when we noticed that another guard caught up to us. Morgana and I took it down easily and were ready to head out, but Ryuji was suggesting that we shouldn’t leave the prisoners here. However, Morgana made it clear that we didn’t have time to do anything, so the three of us left them behind. A while later, we entered a hallway which led to the exit, according to Morgana. Ryuji attempted to open the exit, but it wasn’t budging at all.

“It’s not openin’!” he stated, glaring back at Morgana with a pissed off look on his face. “D’you trick us, you asshole?!”

“Chill out!” said Morgana. “It’s over here.” He then proceeded to enter another room.

“Hey, wait up!”

The room we entered didn’t have a door of some sort that would lead us outside. Ryuji stated that there weren’t any windows in here either. Usually, at this point, I would have given up, but I knew that the exit was close by. It probably wasn’t obvious to him, but I knew what Morgana had in mind.

“Is the exit a ventilation shaft?” I asked. 

“Yes!” Morgana nodded. “You guys should be able to squeeze through it.”

“I see…” said Ryuji, looking at the vent. “Then we just gotta get that metallic mesh off.”

Without another thought, he ran up to it and pried it off the vent, falling back down to the ground afterward. That fall must’ve hurt like a bitch, but Ryuji didn’t seem to care.

“We’re finally gettin’ outta here!” he sighed in relief. “Thank God!”

“Well, let’s wait to celebrate until we actually get out,” Morgana said, in hopes that Ryuji didn’t jinx it. “Now, get going, dweebs!”

“What about you, though?”

“There’s something I still have to do.”

There really wasn’t much for me to say on my part, but I thanked Morgana for helping us get out of here. Whether it was my haircut that changed my appearance or he wasn’t so judgmental, Morgana said I had manners.

 

#

 

I wasn’t sure how we managed to leave the castle, but as soon as we left the place, we were back in our world—I think. Whatever Ryuji and I just experienced, it was trippy as hell and I could guarantee we were not on acid. However, the whole adventure left us feeling totally exhausted. All of the sudden, my Walkman starting speaking for no reason.

_ “You have returned to the real world,” _ the tape said, possessing a female voice.  _ “Welcome back!” _

“Does that mean we got away?” Ryuji asked. 

I honestly wasn’t sure how to think about this anymore. Since I was beyond tired, I said nothing to Ryuji and just stared at the sidewalk for a minute or two, trying to process what happened to us today. I got up for school, ate curry for breakfast, got a little lost while trying to find the Ginza Line, met Ryuji… entered the castle, had a strange encounter with that teacher—Kamoshida, right? The next thing I knew was that I summoned this power and kicked some ass, met a cat-like creature named Morgana and bam—I was back here!

However, I think I might have been zoning out and didn’t realize what Ryuji was doing until two cops walked up to us. They appeared to be irritated by whatever the commotion was.

“What’s with the yelling?” one of them inquired. “Are you students of Shujin? You’re playing hooky, aren’t ya?”

“What? No!” Ryuji denied. “We were tryin’ to get to school, but we ended up at some weird castle!”

The officer gave him a weird glance, thinking that he was definitely crazy.

“Hand over your bag,” he sighed. “You better not be doing any drugs.”

“Why would think that?!” Ryuji blurted, turning to me. “C’mon, dude, you gotta help me?”

“Oh, are you his friend?” the officer questioned.

I guess? Again, I’m not sure about anything anymore.

“Something like that,” I replied, trying to be honest.

“Then take him with you to school,” the other officer said, not sounding as aggressive as his partner. 

Since I didn’t want to waste any more time, I turned around and began walking down the same path I took to school this morning. Ryuji followed me shortly, a bit certain that we were going to come back the castle. However, once we reached the entrance, it was safe for me to say that we made it. As for Ryuji though, he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. 

“Is this for real…?” he mumbled. “What’s goin’ on here?”

Just then, the counselor came out and met up with us.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you,” he grumbled. “Tell me, where were you and your friend roaming around until this time?”

“Um… a castle?” Ryuji explained, even though the counselor didn’t believe he was being honest. 

I heard another man ask something about the castle, and when he showed up and stood next to the counselor, we recognized who it was. 

“Kamoshida?!” Ryuji blurted. 

“You sound so carefree, Sakamoto,” the teacher stated. “It’s quite a difference from when you did morning track practice.”

“Shuddup! It’s your fault that—”

“How dare you speak that way to Mr. Kamoshida!” the counselor yelled, cutting him off. “There’s not much leeway left for you, you know?”

“But he’s the one that provoked me!”

“Do you really wanna be expelled?” the counselor questioned him. “In any case, you’ll have to explain yourself. Follow me!”

The conversation ended shortly as Ryuji followed the guidance counselor, giving Kamoshida a death stare. The teacher brushed it off and turned to me, asking me if he met me before. 

“I saw that girl in your car,” I recalled. 

“That’s right…” he said. “I remember now. And I’m sure you heard this from the principal, but cause any trouble and you’ll be expelled. Understand?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, hurry up and go to the faculty office. I’m sure Ms. Kawakami’s tired of waiting.”

Shit, he’s right. I’m late, and it’s my first day of school during my first week of probation. I hope this doesn’t get any worse.

 

#

 

I went straight to the faculty office just as Mr. Kamoshida told me to, and once I stepped into the room, I could sense the tension coming from my homeroom teacher.

“Unbelievable…” she sighed, sounding disappointed. “Being over half a day late on your first day? Can you explain yourself?”

“I got lost,” I lied, knowing she wasn’t in the mood to hear any nonsense about a castle.

“How could you have been lost for this long? It’s almost lunchtime. Can you pull yourself together? You were given fair warning yesterday.”

Still, I couldn’t figure out why I had to go through something so unfathomable. I didn’t have a choice either—Ryuji and I were only taken to the castle by chance. Speaking of Ryuji, Ms. Kawakami advised me to not hang out with him, stating that he was “nothing but trouble.” Sure, the guy did had an attitude toward me when we first met, but it was just a matter of miscommunication. 

When break was over, Ms. Kawakami lead me to my class, where I heard my classmates mutter rumors amongst themselves. I usually didn’t care about rumors, but this time they seemed to be targeting me—specifically my “criminal record.” The teacher ordered the students to settle down and introduced me shortly afterward.

“All right,” she said. “Please say something to the class.”

“Nice to meet y’all,” I greeted, accidentally slipping into my country slang. I could already tell I fucked up already, seeing a couple of students in the back holding back their laughter. 

Ms. Kawakami assigned me the only open seat in the class, which sat behind a blonde girl. I heard her whisper something about lies, which was then I realized that she was the girl in the car this morning. She didn’t bother to exchange another word with me, leaving me to sit at the back of the class in silence. 

After school ended that day, Ms. Kawakami suggested that I head straight home since the school called Sakura-san earlier today. She said that he sounded pretty angry about my absence so I can expect hell to break loose when I get back. And she told me to not get involved with Ryuji—again. Shortly after that conversation ended, he came up to me and told me to meet up with him at the rooftop. I was curious what he was willing to talk about, so I went upstairs and met up with him in no time. When I got up there, he sat at one of the chairs that were left there, smoking a cigarette. When he turned and saw that I showed up, he was kinda surprised.

“Sorry for callin’ you up here like this,” he apologized. “But I bet Kawakami already told you shit like ‘don’t get involved with him,’ huh?”

“She said you were trouble,” I replied. I dunno if it was solely because they caught him smoking or what, but I was curious about his past already. 

“We’re pretty much in the same boat then. Like, I heard you got a criminal record. Everyone’s talkin’ about it.”

No duh.

I sat down on one of the desks, while Ryuji brought the cig to his lips and breathed in slowly, blowing a puff of smoke after drawing the cig away. 

“What was all that that happened, though?” he wondered, placing his arm on the desk to rest his head on his hand. “You know, how we almost got killed at a castle. It wasn’t a dream… right? You totally remember it too, yeah?”

“Yeah, for sure,” I nodded. 

“Well…” he shrugged. “just ‘cause we both remember it doesn’t mean much though…”

He sat up straight for a second, reclining back in his seat as he rested his ankle on his thigh. He brought the cigarette to his mouth once more and inhaled it, then exhaling an excess amount of smoke. 

“Even if it was a dream, you saved me from Kamoshida,” Ryuji said, smiling at me. “So thanks.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. Seeing girls smile at me back at my old school drove me a bit crazy, but Ryuji was making me feel… something. 

“It was nothing,” I smiled, waving my hand. 

“Still though,” Ryuji continued. “That Kamoshida we saw there… You prolly don’t know about it, but there’s something fucked up about him.”

“What’s that?”

“Well… right now it’s just rumors because no one says anything against him ‘cause he some Olympic medalist who took the volleyball team to nationals.”

He paused for another moment to smoke.

“Damn, though…” he sighed. “I wonder if we can go back to that castle…” 

He got up all of a sudden, throwing his cigarette onto the concentrate and stomped on it to put it out.

“Ugh, forget it!” he said in frustration. “Must’ve all been a dream. It has to be!”

When he was sure that the cigarette was out, he stopped stomping on it and turned to me. 

“Sorry to drag you out here like this,” he apologized again. “That’s all I had to say. But you know, we might be pretty similar. I feel like we’re gonna get along just fine as ‘troublemakers.’”

“Thanks,” I replied. “I forgot to introduce myself, but the name’s Akira Kurusu. Some call me Ren.”

“Great to see you, Akira,” he smiled. “I’ll come talk if I see you around. Don’t ignore me, all right? Seeya.”

 

#

 

“I got an interesting call from your school today,” Sakura-san grumbled when I came back. “It’s only your first day and you’re already showing up hours late?”

“It was an accident,” I told him. 

“Look, just behave yourself,” he continued. “Your life’s forfeit if anything happens. You understand the meaning of probation, right?”

“I do.”

“Okay, then.”

I closed shop up after Sakura-san left and headed up to my room, putting on a jazz vinyl and did any homework I was given. It wasn’t much for my first day, but I already found it exhausting to do. Still, I was able to finish it before nine o’clock. After that, I searched my bag until I found my journal—or diary, or whatever it was. When I got my pen out, I curled up in bed and wrote in it.

 

_ 11th of April, 1988 — Monday _

_ Today was the first day of school and I’m already confused about everything. Not just school-wise, but what happened before school. I’ll write about it some other time though. _

_ I’m confused about someone too—particularly a guy. His name is Ryuji. I just met him, but we’re kind of alike in so many ways. He might be a little more troubled than me, but that’s not the issue. _

_ What do you do when you’re confused about a guy? That’s probably not the right word to say but he makes me feel… something. It feels so strange, but there’s no other way to describe it. And he’s the first person here to not treat me like shit here in Tokyo, probably because he might be a delinquent himself. Whatever it is, he made me laugh today and put a smile on my face. I can’t remember when I was the last time I felt like that.  _


	5. lightning breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhhh im not sure if i should add a tw to this chapter since its vague, but read with caution for now.
> 
> i promise im not dead... i got executive dysfunction but im sure i'll be able to work on schedule soon, so bare with me !!
> 
> without further ado, here's chapter five

I dunno why the hell I was still so tired. Either because my homework was too much or because of the crazy shit that happened earlier. Whatever it was, I had never felt so exhausted in my life ever. I passed out immediately after I finished writing in my journal, falling into another deep slumber. I was hoping for a dreamless night so I could take a minute to forget everything, but I guess that wasn’t happening.

The next thing I knew, I was in that dream again—where I was locked away in my small prison cell. The atmosphere of the place hadn’t changed at all since my last visit. Of course, I still felt imprisoned, but I was also uncertain about this place and I sensed a feeling of… lost? Or is it trouble that I’m thinking of? Either way, this place held no positive energy, but I know I was called here for probably one reason.

“About time you’ve come to!” Caroline—one of the twin wardens—spoke to me with a snobby tone. I dunno if I’ve ever done anything to offend her, but she always sounded like she was ready to backhand me. “On your feet, Inmate!”

“Our master wishes to speak with you,” Justine—the other twin—replied with a more soft-spoken tone. “It’s for your own sake that you take his words to heart.”

Just as I was told, I got up from my wooden bed and walked up to the door of my cell, directing my attention to Igor, who sat at his desk before me.

“First off, let us celebrate our reunion,” he said, his voice sounding low and gravel like. “You’ve awakened to your powers. And special ones at that… your rehabilitation can finally begin.”

“What about it?” I asked, still unsure what he meant. “My rehabilitation?”

“There is no need to understand it all for the time being,” he replied. “You will be training the power of Persona, which you have awakened to. I have high expectations of you.”

“What do you mean?” At this point, not a word from him was beginning to make any sense whatsoever.

“There is no need to worry,” he stated as if there was no trouble in the world. “You will learn when the time comes.”

All the time being… when the times comes… just when will he stop being vague about this so-called rehabilitation?

“By the by…” he continued, “have you come to appreciate the Metaverse Navigator? Using it will allow you to come and go between reality and Palaces.”

Hold on a minute.

“Metaverse Navigator?” I mentioned.

“I bestowed it to you as a means to train you as a thief,” he said.

Training? Thief? Where was this all going to now?

 

#

 

Shortly, before I knew it, I woke up the next morning and heard raindrops outside pounding lightly against my window. I know that I was back in my world for sure, but whatever my dream was, I was still unsure about its meaning. _“Fate and awakening?”_ I thought. _“Whatever… I need to hurry and get ready for school…”_

I took an umbrella with me and followed the same path that I took to get to the Ginza Line yesterday. The subway was just as crowded, but unlike yesterday, I heard a few conversations buzzing nearby. Most of the people talking were high school students and they were talking about the train accident that occurred the other day. I didn’t pay too much attention to the conversation, but people were mentioning that these accidents were caused by mental breakdowns and that it’s been a common occurrence lately. _“Maybe Uncle Katsuya knows a thing or two about these accidents,”_ I thought.

“Aoyama-itchome,” I heard a man announce on the speakers as I got off the train. “This is Aoyama-itchome.”

Without wasting another minute, I walked along the same path that I took to school to see if anything had changed. Whether Ryuji and I experienced a mass hallucination or not, I wanted to confirm my suspicions about the castle for sure. I got close to the perimeter of the school in no time and when I walked up to the front gate, I stood there and observed the building. Slightly confused but relieved, the building right in front of my own eyes was only the school. I pulled a strand of my own hair out to see if I was dreaming, and when I let out a small yelp of pain, I was right again—and some students that were passing by were giving me some dirty looks. A lot of weird things were happening, but this was my cue that I was safe—for now.

“You all look like you’ve been spoiled growing up,” the social studies teacher, Mr. Ushimaru, bluntly stated once class began. “Before we learn society’s rules, maybe I should start with the rules of being a decent human being.”

I didn’t hear anything he said after that, all because I was slacking off as I did back at my old school: stared at the window and sat there, daydreaming. I got away with it many times during my first year of high school, but I guess the teachers here were actually going to take their jobs seriously like the principal had mentioned to me before.

“Hey, new kid,” Mr. Ushimaru called me.

Immediately, I snapped out of it and turned my attention to him.

“The Greek philosopher Plato divided the human soul into three parts,” he stated. “A soul is composed of appetite, spirit, and what else?”

Surprisingly, I learned about this last year. It’s been a while since I’ve learned that unit in history, but the answer has stuck to my brain like glue.

“Logic,” I answered.

He was surprised by my response, almost cracking a smile.

“Correct,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to know that answer, but that is correct.”

After that short pop quiz lesson, the teacher didn’t talk about history that much but did mention the news of the train accidents and the mental breakdowns. I didn’t care much about the subject of the conversation, but my classmates and I had no choice but to listen.

 

#

 

Once classes ended for the day, I was about to go straight home until I heard another conversation happening nearby. I usually ignored them, but it was between a teacher and a student. Particularly, I saw that Kamoshida was talking to the blonde girl, who sits at the desk in front of me in class. They didn’t see me, but I backed up a little to where they couldn’t see me much and I started eavesdropping.

“So Takamaki,” he said, smiling like a weirdo. “You looking for a ride home? Things have been pretty crazy lately with all these accidents.”

“Sorry, I have a photoshoot today,” she declined, sounding rather stressed out. “It’s for the special summer issue, so I can’t afford to miss it…”

“Hey, now… being a model’s fine and dandy, but don’t work your pretty little self to the bone.”

I cringed a little. Did I hear that correctly? Was he really talking to her with _that_ tone?

“You mentioned you weren’t feeling well, right?” he recalled. “Something about appendicitis?”

What?

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I keep planning to go to the hospital, but I’ve been too busy…” She paused for a moment, not so sure about what to say to him. “Sorry to worry you.”

“Well… you must be lonely too,” he said. “I feel bad for keeping your best friend at practice so often. That’s why I asked you out in the first place.”

Asked her out? Does that mean Ryuji’s suspicions about Kamoshida are true?

“Oh, and be careful around that transfer student,” he warned her, which was about me obviously. “He’s got a criminal record. If something were to happen to you…”

“Uhh, thank you,” she replied. “Please excuse me.”

She walked away from him, ending the conversation. Deciding that I’ve heard enough, I started walking again and was about to leave the school until I ran into Ryuji at the front gate.

“Yo,” he waved.

“Hey,” I greeted him. “What’s up?”

“I wanna talk about the castle from yesterday,” he said, crossing his arms. “I tried tellin’ myself it was just a dream… but I couldn’t do it, man. I mean, I can’t act like nothin’ happened. It’s all connected to that bastard Kamoshida.”

“And what’re you gonna do?” I asked, twisting a small strand of my curly hair.

“I wanna find out what the hell’s up with that place,” he said, looking determined. “And y’know, you’re the only person I can rely on for this stuff. So, are ya in or are ya out?”

From what I heard Kamoshida talk about earlier, there was only one right option to chose.

“Sure,” I replied. “Count me in.”

“Looks like I managed to talk some sense into you then,” he chuckled. “Well, uh… I think we should try to retrace our steps from yesterday. In the meantime, you’re walkin’ to the station, right? Let’s walk together.”

After all, Ryuji seemed like a nice guy despite being dubbed as a “troublemaker.”

We walked away from the school, retracing our steps back to the path we started on yesterday. In no time, we reached the place, where Kamoshida picked up that girl and where I met Ryuji. Nothing has changed much about this area, except it was a little crowded. When we stopped at the exact spot, Ryuji stopped and turned to me.

“If a huge castle like that really exists,” he started, “I’m sure we’ll find it in no time. But when’d they build somethin’ like that though?”

I shrugged my shoulders, unable to recall if they ever built a European-like castle in Japan.

“We walked that way from here, right?” Ryuji assumed, talking about the path we took yesterday.

“Maybe,” I said, even though I was sure we walked that way.

“Well, when you put it that way, I’m not so sure anymore…”

But regardless of my answer, we started walking again and found ourselves walking through that alleyway to see if we would see that castle again. However, the minute we reached the end of our path, we were back at the front gate of the school.

“Huh…?” Ryuji muttered. “We’re at school… but there wasn’t anything out of place along the way, right? We must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. We should try again.”

“Again?” I sighed. “I mean, really?”

“Don’t worry, man. I won’t mess up this time.”

And so we started walking again. We went back to the meeting place, made a turn and walked through the alley, and ended up at the school just as I expected. Ryuji and I were a bit frustrated at this point, but I know we couldn’t just give up now.

“Is it smaller than we think it is?” he questioned. “I mean, whaddaya think?”

Then I remembered something specific.

“Do you have a Walkman?” I asked.

“What was that?” he asked me to repeat the question.

“Do you have a Walkman?”

“Uh… yeah. Why do you ask?”

The sudden realization then hit Ryuji, looking back at me with a surprised look on his face.

“That does remind me—” he said, pulling his Walkman out of his bag. “My tape did start messing up back then. Was your’s acting up too?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think it did when I moved here too.”

“I knew it! I mean, I heard the tape repeating from your headphones when you took them off. And didn’t it say some shit like ‘return to the real world’ or somethin’ like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see that tape then?”

I pulled my Walkman out of my bag, popping it open and grabbed the tape that was still lodged inside the Walkman. Just as I remembered, the tape that I was listening to yesterday was Oingo Boingo’s _Only a Lad_. Without hesitation, Ryuji took the tape and read the list of songs that were on the tape.

“What’s this track?” he asked, sounding disturbed. “‘Little Girls?’ What the hell is this?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “But when I started playing it, that’s when the tape started going crazy and began looping.”

“Well, let’s try usin’ it!” he suggested.

“Uh… I dunno about this though.”

“Why not? We’re just playin’ a song on my Walkman, that’s all.”

“Alright then.”

Ryuji inserted my tape into his Walkman and closed it, waiting for the tape to rewind so that we could play “Little Girls.” When the Walkman cued that it was done rewinding, Ryuji hit the play button and we waited for the song to start. Before it played, however, the Walkman began to talk on his own.

_“Suguru Kamoshida… Shujin Academy… Pervert… Castle… Beginning navigation.”_

Ryuji and I raised our brows in surprise, wondering how in the hell this Walkman could talk. However, Ryuji wasn’t even bothered by this statement and was rather excited about this.

“There we go!” he cheered as the song began to play. “And then we went in some direction, and—”

All of a sudden, we felt something weird going on around us.

“What the hell?!” Ryuji blurted, realizing that tape was suddenly skipping around and stuff.

It wasn’t long until we realized we were in deep shit again; our surroundings began to vanish and the buildings were beginning to reform into something else. Eventually, the image of the school began warping into something I could not comprehend. _“Is it happening again?”_ I thought. My suspicions were then proven right again when the final transformation resulted in the school turning into the castle. The architecture was just as I remembered, and the atmosphere of the place hadn’t changed either: it screamed ruin and authority.

“It’s the castle from yesterday!” Ryuji shouted.

We both ran up to the entrance of the castle and stopped for a minute to review the situation that we were in.

“We made it back…” he said. “That means what happened yesterday totally was for real. And look at your clothes, dude!”

He was right. When I stared at my hands and saw that I was wearing those red gloves, I saw that I was wearing that get-up as well. I don’t think these clothes looked terrible, but I was wondering what the hell was going on to make me wear them.

“That happened yesterday too, yeah?” Ryuji recalled. “I mean, what the hell’s with that outfit?!”

I honestly don’t know, but it made me think…

“It ain’t bad, huh?” I said, inserting my hands into my pockets and smiling.

“You LIKE it?!” he blurted. “I mean, I just—what’s goin’ on here?! This shit makes no fuckin’ sense at all, man…”

All of a sudden, we heard a familiar boyish voice call out to us.

“Hey!”

We turned and saw Morgana, peeking out from behind a wall. They walked up to us, now looking rather serious.

“Stop making such a commotion,” they whispered.

“Why are you here?!” Ryuji lowered his voice.

“The Shadows started acting up, so I came here wondering what it could be. And to think you guys would come back to the entrance when you barely managed to escape.”

“Well, what is this place?” he started to question Morgana. “Is it the school?”

“That’s right.”

“But look at this place!” he nearly hollered, stretching his arm out to show us the environment. “It’s a castle!”

“The castle IS the school! But only to the castle’s ruler.”

“The castle’s ruler?”

“I think you called him Kamoshida?” Morgana mentioned. “This is how his distorted heart views the school.”

“Really?” I asked, even though I kinda couldn’t understand what they were talking about.

“Kamoshida… Distorted…?” Ryuji questioned. “How ‘bout you explain it in a way that makes sense!”

“Well, I shouldn’t have expected a moron to get it,” Morgana said.

“What’d you say?!”

Ryuji nearly jumped when we all heard some guy screaming in turmoil. The scream was distant and far, but it was still haunting to hear.

“What was that?!” he panicked.

“Must be the slaves captive here,” said Morgana.

“For real?!”

Another scream echoed throughout the castle.

“Holy shit!” Ryuji cursed. “This is for real! I mean, we saw some dudes held captive here yesterday… and I’m pretty sure they were from our school.”

“Most likely on Kamoshida’s orders,” Morgana continued. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary: it’s like that every day here.”

“You serious?” I asked, wondering what else went on in this place.

“Yes,” Morgana replied. “And since you two escaped yesterday, he has lost his temper quite a bit.”

“That sunnava bitch!” Ryuji hissed. “This is bullshit!”

Just then, Ryuji turned around for a split second and charged toward the door, hitting it with all his might. He didn’t budge the door one bit, but he continued to pound his fists on the metal surface of the door.

“You hear me, Kamoshida?!” he yelled.

“Doing that isn’t going to open it, you know,” Morgana sighed. “Still, it seems you have your reasons…”

After a while, Ryuji gave up and stopped pounding on the door, turning to Morgana for help.

“Yo, Monamona!” he called.

“It’s Morgana!” the creature corrected him.

“Whatever! Do y’know where those voices are comin’ from?”

“You want me to take you to them?” Morgana asked, unsure about Ryuji’s question. “Well… I guess I could guide you there, but only if he comes with us.”

Morgana looked up at me, hoping that I would agree to their proposition.

“Aight then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“It’s settled then!” Morgana smiled.

“For real?” Ryuji stated. “Thanks, man!”

 

#

 

Before we decided to run in there and help out the slaves, Morgana gave us a crash course on the basics of so-called phantom thievery. I dunno why they were teaching it to us now, but the information seemed important and I needed to pay attention. For all I know, this stuff might save my life later on, even though the situation we were in right now wasn’t really a dire one. Maybe. Kamoshida—in whatever world this was—was still on our asses for sure, but as long as we’re stealthy and don’t get caught by any guards, I think we’ll be just fine.

Once we were through with our lessons, we crawled through a vent and ended up in one of the castle halls. When Morgana entered the room, they marched up in front of us and suggested that we started following them if we wanted to find the slaves. We followed them in no time, but we eventually came back to the front hall that Ryuji and I were at yesterday. While they stood there waiting for further instruction, an image of the school hallways flashed before us.

“What the hell?!” Ryuji gasped. “Was that Shujin?!”

“I’ve told you this before,” Morgana reminded him. “This place is your school, and we don’t have time to stand around. A Shadow might show up!”

Morgana started running down the hall again and we followed them, walking down the stairs and we eventually returned to the underground dungeon. We had to pause for a moment, searching for a way to pass one of the guards without getting caught. However, we found no solution and Morgana taught me how to ambush the enemy. I nearly got caught while carrying out the ambush, but I hopped onto its shoulders and tore its mask off to initiate the fight. Morgana and I, needless to say, slaughtered the damn thing within seconds. My own strength still surprised me, but I guess that’s what happens when I’ve had been holding in my frustrations for so long.

We heard footsteps marching toward us shortly after the fight, so the three of us ran for safety and ended up hiding in a room that Morgana said was off-limits to the Shadows. Ryuji wasn’t quite certain about this, but Morgana was able to provide an explanation.

“There’s a lack of distortion here,” they stated, “meaning that ruler’s control over this area is weak.”

Another still image of the school flash momentarily, showing a classroom this time.

“Is this a classroom?!” Ryuji inquired.

“This place is another reality that the ruler’s heart projects,” Morgana said clearly. “Now do you understand?”

“This is Kamoshida’s reality…? Shit makes no sense at all!”

“One could say it’s a world in which one’s distorted desires have materialized,” the cat explained further, probably making no sense to Ryuji. “I call such a place a ‘Palace.’”

“A Palace…?”

I didn’t say anything, but I raised my eyebrows when I recognized that word from somewhere. Igor mentioned that in my dream—or whatever—last night, which I was tempted to ask about but never did. However, things were starting to make sense.

“This is happening because he thinks the school is his own castle,” Morgana continued to explain the phenomenon.

“So, it became like this ‘cause he just thought of it like that?!” Ryuji concluded his own question. “Hahaha… ugh, that sunnava bitch!”

“You must really hate this Kamoshida guy,” the cat said.

Before anything else was said, I turned to Ryuji and saw that the emotion of pain and hatred were visible in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what to make of this yet. As far as I knew, Kamoshida appeared to be an asshole and definitely seemed like a pervert for sure, but something else happened. Whatever it was, it’s probably hurting Ryuji still.

“Hate doesn’t even cover how I feel,” Ryuji grumbled, turning to Morgana. “Everything is that asshole’s fault!”

“I don’t know what happened between you two,” Morgana said glumly, “but don’t let your emotions get the better of you. His lackey’s are everywhere inside.”

After giving their advice to Ryuji, Morgana turned their attention to me—or something else in particular.

“And you’re curious about your outfit, aren’t you?” they asked me.

“Yeah,” I heard Ryuji chuckle. “I’m curious as hell about it too.”

“Well, it’s also because of this world,” the cat said. “Anything distorts according to how a ruler pleases within his Palace. However, your appearance—which is a manifestation of rebellion—prevents such distortions. And your outfit is your image of rebellion that you hold within.”

“But what the hell are you?!” Ryuji huffed. “I’m more curious about you than his clothes!”

“I’m a human!” Morgana stated, despite appearing as a cat before us. “An honest-to-god human!”

“Hell no! You’re obviously a cat!”

“Well… this is because I lost my true form… I think.”

“You think?” I inquired. “What makes you say that?”

Morgana didn’t really answer our questions about themself but did declare that they couldn’t wait to deal with Kamoshida.

Before we were ready to leave the safe room, Ryuji handed me what I thought was a real gun, but said that it was only a model gun that made sounds. The joke didn’t seem funny at all, considering the type of situation we were in, but I thanked him and shoved the gun into my pocket.

After doing a bit of eavesdropping and waiting for the guards to scram, we left the safe room and agreed to head on down to the training hall, where the slaves were said to be tortured. Morgana and I attacked another guard on our way there, which wasn’t much of a hassle for us. I honestly thought it was kinda frustrating dealing with so many of them, but knowing we weren’t gonna find a secret trail anytime soon, I told myself to suck it up.

Ryuji, on the other hand, wasn’t having much fun just sitting back and watching us fight off the guards.

“I wish I could fight,” he said, referring to our Personas. “I’d at least be able to help out a little bit, but all I got is this damn toy from earlier… I’m such a fuckin’ loser.”

Morgana, however, eventually found out that Ryuji’s gun was not useless like he previously thought. When we were faced with more Shadows, Morgana ordered me to aim the gun at one of the enemies and fire. I followed their instructions and pulled the trigger, surprised to see that I shot down the enemy. I didn’t know what was going on, but I thought that was gnarly as hell! Ryuji was amazed by the action as well.

“Dude!” he hollered. “Were those bullets legit?!”

“This is a cognitive world, after all,” Morgana said, preparing to give us another lecture. “As long as our opponent sees it as real, it becomes such. Good thing it’s realistic-looking.”

Ryuji said he still didn’t understand the whole cognition thing, but Morgana said that he was free to perceive it as whatever it was that he had in mind. Again, he probably didn’t understand this shit, but he was tried of bombarding Morgana with questions and receiving answers that made no sense to him.

After fighting a few more guards along the way, we made it to the entrance of the training hall, which had a freaky name of some sort written above it.

“Kamoshida’s,” Ryuji started reading, “...Training Hall… of Love?! Gag me with a spoon, what kinda bullshit is this?!”

And with that, we entered the training hall and headed for the source of the screaming. We weren’t sure what to expect when finally saw some prison cells nearby, but when we all got close enough and saw what kind of torture was going on, I became a bit sick to my stomach. I felt infuriated as well, but probably not as infuriated as Ryuji.

“Dammit!” he cursed. “This is fucked up!”

Morgana told him to quiet down again, which he did but then starting sulking around. I probably would do the same thing if I were him. To see a bunch of high school kids get their asses whooped constantly by the guards was something I never thought of witnessing. I know I was gonna see some strange shit in Tokyo sooner or later, but like Ryuji said: this is fucked up.

“Leave us alone…” an injured volleyball player begged us, limping toward us. “It’s useless…”

“What?!” Ryuji muttered. Another student then came up to us, also begging us to leave them alone.

“If we stay obedient, we won’t be executed like you guys,” he mumbled.

“You tellin’ me you wanna stay in a crazy place like this?!” Ryuji yelled at the students, gripping his knuckles on the steel bars.

“Wait a minute…” Morgana interrupted. “Were you planning on taking these guys out of here?”

“Well, duh!” he turned to the cat. “We can’t just leave ‘em here!”

Morgana shook their head, judging Ryuji from a distance.

“How stupid can you be…?” they sighed.

“What are you sayin’?!”

“These are only humans in Kamoshida’s cognition,” the cat groaned. “They aren’t real humans. They’re different from you two. Or if that doesn’t make sense, they’re like extremely similar-looking dolls.”

Ryuji rested his face in his hands and then groaned as he rubbed his temples.

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbled. “The school’s a castle… the students are slaves… It’s so on point that it makes me laugh. I mean, you’re right! This really is the inside of that asshole’s head!”

“Still… this is horrible,” Morgana admitted, walking up the cell full of abused students. “It must mean he treats them as slaves in the real world too.”

Ryuji turned his attention away, appearing to be pained by the abuse that he was witnessing. When he started observing the students again, he noticed something about them.

“Wait…” he said, looking surprised. “I know these guys. They’re members of the volleyball team—the one Kamoshida coaches for!”

“They must be physically abused every day…” Morgana assumed. “There’s no way they’d be beat up so normally.”

“So they’re going through this shit in reality too?!”

“Most likely…”

“So… the physical abuse might be getting worse…” Ryuji stated. “Akira, wouldn’t this be somethin’ to report to the police?”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. “I mean, my dad is a cop.”

“I’ll use these guys as evidence then and—dammit, nevermind!”

“Wait, why?” I asked.

“I don’t have a camera on me!” he complained.

“Whatever you do is fine,” Morgana suggested, “but we’re gonna get caught if we stand around like this. We need to head back soon!”

“I’ll memorize their faces then,” Ryuji said, moving closer toward the cell to get a better look at the students. “Just gimme a minute!”

We spent a minute or two inspecting the neighboring cells, which also held students that were facing torture just as bad or worse than the infinite ass whoopings. A few kids were being forced to run a treadmill while one of them was tied up and being forced to endure a million volleyballs being thrown at his face. It doesn’t sound too harsh, but cannons were being used to launch the volleyballs so you can guess how much force was being thrown toward him.

“Damn that bastard!” Ryuji cursed, feeling tense again just thinking about the pain Kamoshida was inflicting upon his students.

After inspecting the imprisoned students, Ryuji gave us the signal that he was through with his inspection, allowing us three to leave the training hall for good. I wasn’t sure if we were coming back to the castle after what we just witnessed today, but I was certain that I didn’t want to walk down this hallway again anytime soon.

We made a quick run for it again once we got out; we heard a few guards in the area say that they had received an alert that there were intruders in the area—those intruders, of course, being us. Certainly, with no time to waste, we were hoping to get out of here without getting caught. Things were not going as planned though, however. Once we reached the main hall again, we were faced with Kamoshida and two of his men. I wasn’t so sure if he was happy to see us or couldn’t wait to kill us with his bare hands, but that smirk he had on his face was giving me the creeps.

“You knaves again?” he groaned. “To think you’d make the same mistake again. You’re hopeless!”

“Screw you!” Ryuji shouted at him. “I’ll tell you what I know: this school ain’t your castle! And I’ve memorized those kids’ faces, so you’re goin’ down!”

It didn’t seem like this was phasing Kamoshida at all, however.

“It seems it’s true when they say ‘barking dogs seldom bite,’” he said. “How far the star runner of the track team has fallen… but that’s your own fault.”

“What the hell are you gettin’ at?!” Ryuji demanded an answer.

“I speak of the desperate ‘Track Traitor,’” the corrupt coach continued with his monologue, “who acted on impulse and in violence, ending his teammates’ dreams and his own. I can imagine the pain of the others who were dragged under with your… selfish acts.”

Already, these accusations were paining Ryuji, who I then heard whimper. I dunno if anyone else heard him, but it was clear to me that he was suffering.

“Selfish acts?” I inquired.

“What a surprise,” Kamoshida said. “So you’re accompanying him without knowing anything at all? He tried to impress me, betrayed his teammates, and crushed their hopes, yet he still carries on as carefree as ever.”

“That’s not true!” Ryuji denied.

“That doesn’t matter now. You’ve come along with this fool and are now going to end up dead. How unlucky of you…!”

Kamoshida then ordered his men to kill us, calling us garbage as the guards transformed into some satanic horse-like beasts. Their skin was coal black and their eyes bled red, and their emerald horns curled toward their white manes. There were three of them, surrounding us.

“There’s more of them?” Morgana wondered. “This is bad…”

We fought back for a moment, trying to give our all. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until we realized that they were overpowered and they knocked Morgana out. _“No,”_ I thought, as one of the beasts struck me again. Feeling hopeless suddenly, I collapsed onto the floor and let out a sigh of exhaustion.

“Ugh…” I heard Morgana groan. “You piece of—”

They were cut off when Kamoshida rested his foot on their back; I felt a foot on mine as well, but the guard stood on it with harsher force. And then there was Ryuji—sitting in despair a couple of feet away from that bastard of a teacher.

“I bet you simply came here on a whim and ended up like this,” he turned to my friend. “Isn’t that right?”

“No…” Ryuji shook his head, though the look of defeat was showing on his face.

“I see you’re still such a sensitive piece of shit, getting emotional so quickly like you did back in September… and now this? How dare you raise your hand at me.”

Ryuji just sat there in silence, staring at him with a pissed yet sadden look in his eyes.

“Come on, Sakamoto,” Kamoshida said, “have you forgotten my kindness in supervising track practice?”

“It wasn’t no practice—it was physical abuse!” Ryuji shouted, now nearly laying on the floor. “You just didn’t like our team!”

“It was an eyesore! The only one who needs to achieve results is me! That other coach who got fired was hopeless too… Had he not opposed with a sound argument, I would’ve settled it with only breaking his star’s leg.”

“What?”

“Do you need me to deal with your other leg too? The school will call it self-defense anyway! What’s with that look on your face anyway? Am I breaking your heart again?”

“No…” I heard Ryuji mumble to himself. “Am I gonna lose again? Not only can I not run anymore and feel like a toy, the track team is gone too because of this asshole…”

“So that’s why…” said Morgana, who then yelped in pain as Kamoshida was crushing them.

“Once these two are dealt with,” Kamoshida continued, “you’re next.”

He laughs like the total menace he is, ready for our executions to be done and over with as Ryuji laid there in silence. Morgana tried to call out to him, persuading him to do something about it, but their words meant nothing to him. Like before, I wasn’t going to stay silent on the issue; despite meeting him just only yesterday, I was all Ryuji had now.

“Stand up for yourself!” I yelled. “You can’t let him bring you down!”

My words were truly encouraging to his ears as I saw him beginning to sit back up.

“You’re right,” he said. “Everything that was important to me was taken by him… and so was a part of me… I’ll never get ‘em back…!”

“You can stay there and watch then!” Kamoshida snickered. “Look on as these hopeless scum die for nothing because they sided with trash like you.”

Though it seemed like his words would’ve been enough to bring him down again, Ryuji slowly got up and stood tall—and for the first time since I’ve met him, he stood proudly as well.

“No…” he retorted, “because that’s what you are. All you think about is using people… You’re the real scumbag, Kamoshida!”

For a moment, there was silence; Kamoshida was beginning to feel threatened by this.

“What are you doing?” he said as Ryuji walked closer to him. “Silence him!”

“Fuck you!” Ryuji berated him, pointing fiercely at him. “Stop lookin’ down on me with that stupid smile on your face!”


	6. intermission i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ryuji's pov
> 
> very short chapter i know. and college just started up again so pls be patient with me oof

That’s when this dude’s voice called to me.

_ “You made me wait quite a while,” _ he said. 

That’s also when I was hit with this crazy killer headache. I fell down and screamed in agony and started shaking like crazy. Oh man, what the hell was goin’ on with me? It felt like someone just stuck a power drill into my brain and turned it on!

_ “You seek power, correct?” _ he asked as I laid there screeching.  _ “Then let us form a pact. Since your name has been disgraced already, why not hoist the flag and wreak havoc?” _

I didn’t understand what was going on, but—oh fuck! My head! Am I dying?!

_ “The ‘other you’ who exists within desires it thus… I am thou, thou art I…” _

He whispered this to me as I rolled on the floor, sweatin’ like a dog on a hot summer day and yelping in pain. Whatever this is, I can’t fuckin’ take it anymore!

_ “The skull of rebellion is your flag henceforth!” _ he declared.

Just then, the pain disappeared and a mask appeared on my face. I looked up ahead at one of the minions, who was about to kill my friend. Just as he was about to swing his sword down and chop his head off, I quickly got onto my feet and started tearing my mask off. The damn thing wouldn’t come off for a second, but then I went berserk and tore it off like a maniac. The pain sent me screaming again, and the next thing I know, some powerful force stormed into the room and I was in the eye of a hurricane. 

Now I was standing before this rotten asshole, smiling like the troublemaker I have  _ always _ been. But I wasn’t some ordinary punk now—I’m gonna raise hell and make sure that he doesn’t forget.

“Right on…” I gasped for air. “Wassup, Persona? This fuckin’ rocks! Now that I got this power, it’s time for payback!”

I noticed that the force blew away the minions—literally—when I saw that Akira and Morgana had been freed. They seemed to be happy about my new powers, especially Akira.

“Yo, I’m ready…” I called to him, then turning to one of the minions. “Bring it, you bastard!”

“Don’t mock me, you brat!” he boomed, before melting into a puddle and turning into some warrior. Sure, he seemed confident in punishing me, but that wasn’t goin’ to happen any time soon. Hell, no one’s gonna punish me for anything  _ ever _ again! Let alone take advantage of me!

“Blast him away… Captain Kidd!”


	7. cover me

Ryuji was out of breath when the fight was over, resting his hands on his knees while he was gasping for air. The same thing happened to me when I first awakened to my powers, so I honestly don’t blame him for already feeling exhausted. But all of a sudden, he got back up on his feet and faced Kamoshida.

“How ‘bout that?!” he huffed. “Even if you apologize now, I ain’t forgivin’ you!”

Kamoshida didn’t really seem bothered by this.

“I told you that this is my castle,” he stated. “It seems you still don’t understand.”

Out of nowhere, this pale blonde girl walks up to him and stands right beside him. She was dressed in nothing but a purple leopard print bikini and wore matching cat ears, and her hair was tied into two ponytails. Wait, was that—

“Wh—Takamaki?!” Ryuji blurted. While the two of us were wondering what the hell was going on, Morgana seemed somewhat interested in what they were seeing.

“Oh!” they meowed. “What a meow-velous and beautiful girl!”

“What’s going on…?!” Ryuji pondered. I wished I knew, but something seemed off about it. “Why is she even here?!”

Kamoshida grabbed hold of her chin, and give her this look that I don’t even have the courage to describe. I froze, feeling pure disgust while Ryuji yelled at the guy.

“Hey! Let go of her, you damn perv!”

“How many times must I tell you until you understand?” Kamoshida turned to us, looking pissed off. “This is MY castle—a place which I can do whatever I want. Everyone wishes to be loved by me… but that is everyone besides slow-witted thieves like you.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Ryuji retorted.”Takamaki! Say somethin’!”

“Calm down Ryuji!” Morgana insisted. “She’s the same as those slaves—a being made from Kamoshida’s cognition of her!”

“Still,” Kamoshida smirked, “you jealous? Well, I’m not surprised. Women aren’t drawn to problematic punks like you.”

He then ordered his guards to attack us, leaving us with no choice but to run. We couldn’t afford to die right here, but before we could run off, Ryuji threatened Kamoshida one more time.

“We’ll expose you for what you really are, no matter what!” he promised. “You better be ready for us, you bastard!”

We left the scene and followed the escape route that led us back to the front of the castle. I was glad we made it out of there in time, but I still had a few questions running through my head, particularly about Ryuji’s past. Morgana and I now know that he used to be a member of the track team, but whatever else Kamoshida was talking about, he was being too vague about it. Ryuji being impulsive? And being sensitive? What was that about? Ryuji mentioned feeling like a toy earlier, so what did he mean by that? What was Kamoshida implying exactly?

When we made our stop at the front entrance, Ryuji was panting like crazy and I swear he was going to faint right there. However, he seemed okay when he stood up again, then turning to me when he realized something.

“What the hell is this outfit anyway?” he asked. “I don’t remember changin’ into this!”

I guess he thought his outfit was stupid as hell, but I honestly… kind of liked it. It wasn’t tacky or too flashy, but it really suited his punk rock image. He’s wearing a leather jacket and black pants that match, along with some knee pads, a bright red ascot, combat boots identical to his usual pair, and these fluorescent yellow gloves that’ll probably blind you if you stared at them for too long. And then there’s the mask that he’s wearing: it’s gray (or is it black leather?), and it’s in the shape of a human skull. Some of his curls stick out, hugging the frame of the mask. Whether he liked his outfit or not, I only had one thing to say:

“It looks good on you…”

Ryuji looked at me with a surprised look on his face, saying nothing back to me in return. I swore I saw him blushing, but his face might’ve been red from all the running we just did. All of a sudden, we all heard a few voices coming from the guards inside the castle.

“Did you find them?!”

“No. Search that way!”

Once they passed, Ryuji began to ask Morgana some questions again.

“So what’s goin’ on? I’m completely lost, man.”

“I told you this before,” Morgana said. “When a Persona-user opposes a Palace’s ruler and becomes a threat to them, this happens. It’s to prevent you from being affected by distortions.”

“So this mask…” Ryuji said. “This is a skull?”

“Your appearance reflects your inner self. It’s the rebel that slumbers within… Not that you’ll get it.”

“Nope,” Ryuji shook his head, still looking confused as ever.

Once we figured out that the Kamoshida in reality wouldn’t remember what happened at the castle, Ryuji and I were ready to head home until Morgana insisted they needed our help. I dunno what for, but it sounded like we owed them a favor.

“I guided you as promised,” they mentioned. “It’s your turn to cooperate with me.”

Huh?

“That’s why I was super nice about teaching you idiots everything.”

And I thought Morgana knew I had brains, compared to Ryuji. I was confused about this “deal,” and so was Ryuji. What the hell did they mean by “cooperate?”

“Don’t you remember?” said Morgana, seeming frustrated. “I originally came here for an investigation. I need to erase the distortion from my body and regain my real form!”

Um, what?

“That’s why we must delve deep into Mementos and—”

“Hold the hell up!” Ryuji interrupted. “What’re you goin’ on and on about? We never said anything about helpin’ you out.”

“Huh?! Don’t tell me…” Morgana slightly gasped, turning to me. “Are you not going to repay the hospitality I showed you?”

Though I was a generous person myself, I had to break it to them.

“I never promised such a thing,” I said, shocking Morgana.

“Is it because I’m not human?” they scowled. “Because I’m like a cat? Is that why you’re making a fool of me?!”

“No,” Ryuji came to my defense. “We’re just busy with life, but thanks for everything, cat. I mean, you’ve got guts for bein’ a cat and all. So see ya around!”

As Ryuji and I made a run for it again, we heard Morgana yelling and cursing at us. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but like Ryuji, I could care less. I was just ready to go home and take a fat nap after what we just been through.

_ “You have returned to the real world,” _ we heard the Walkman announce.  _ “Welcome back.” _

We didn’t end up back at the school gate, but founded ourselves in the back alley near the school, huffing for air and nearly collapsing from fatigue. Not so much on my part, but Ryuji seemed like he was ready to pass out and just sleep here for the night. I bet he wouldn’t though, considering what his parents would think. 

“Thank god!” Ryuji huffed. “We’re back… but I dragged you around a lot, huh? Sorry about that, man…”

“You didn’t,” I said. “What you did back there was so cool.”

“Yeah, but now I’m dead tired… How you holdin’ up?”

“I’m so exhausted,” I sighed. “I could use a nap.”

“Me too… I’m gonna sleep like a rock when I get home.”

I wish I could sleep forever.

“Damn though,” said Ryuji, “if what we saw was legit, this is gonna get good.”

“You think so?” I asked. 

“Totally! I remember all the faces of the guys Kamoshida was treatin’ like slaves. Once we make ‘em fess up to any abuse, he’ll be done for. You still in?”

“Yeah, man,” I nodded. “I mean, from what I saw back there… that was just torture.”

“I couldn’t agree more, dude,” he stated. “But if you’re thinkin’ of layin’ low ‘cause you got a record, I don’t think that’ll help out… I mean, everyone already knows. They totally got you pegged as a criminal.”

Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that…

“How’d that happen, anyway?” I asked, wondering if he had a clue.

“Kamoshida opened his damn mouth,” he sighed. 

Seriously?

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a student or a club,” Ryuji continued, “that asshole just wrecks things he doesn’t agree with. Just like he did with me… and because of that, no one’ll take anything I say seriously.”

“That blows,” I said.

“For real… and the fact that he’s still actin’ violent toward his students is unforgivable. And after seein’ Kamoshida’s distorted-heart thingy in person, I know I couldn’t just sit back and watch any longer.”

“Like I said, I’m with you on this,” I said, giving Ryuji my full support.

“I’m countin’ on you!” he smiled. “But don’t worry; I’m hyped about this too.”

Though I met him just yesterday, I have already put my trust in Ryuji. He was making me feel some other emotions as well, but I wasn’t too sure how to handle them. He was so cool, but something about him made me feel… special.

 

#

 

“WHAT?!” Ryuji blurted in the middle of the restaurant while we sat down and ate our ramen. “What the hell, man! How much shittier could that asshole get?!”

“I dunno…” I sighed, looking down at my bowl. “But I just prefer to forget it. It’s in the past now…”

“Are you serious? If it was me, I wouldn’t calm down until I punched that dick in the face! But, whatever I guess… but anyway, you left your hometown and you’re living here now?”

“Yup,” I nodded. 

“And where’d you come from again?”

“Sumaru City. It’s two hours from here. I’ve lived there my whole life up until now.”

“Really? My mom lived there in the 60s.”

“My family has been there for like… ever.”

Ryuji paused for a moment while I ate, then turning to me with a depressed look on his face.

“We might be more alike than I originally thought then,” he stated.

“Really?” I asked. “How so?”

Ryuji sighed, eating what was left of his meal.

“I guess it’s how we’re treated like a pain in the ass by the people around us,” he said, “like we don’t belong. And I did… some stupid things before too.”

He titled his bowl, trying to inhale the rest of his food before he could continue the conversation. When he was done, he slammed his bowl down and sighed.

“Anyway, the place you’re livin’ in now is in Yongen, right? It’s rush hour on the subways, so I suggest you kill some time before headin’ home.”

“I figured,” I said, before slurping up some more noodles.

“No problem, man. I got your back like you got mine from tomorrow on. As long as we do something about Kamoshida, I’m sure we’ll both feel better about bein’ at school.”

Ryuji and I exchanged phone numbers and went back to eating soon after. We planned on meeting with students from the volleyball team tomorrow, to see if they’ll confess. I’m anxious about the mission, but I’m sure that we would end up digging up more secrets. Though it was now clear to me that Kamoshida is inflicting physical abuse and is a perv, I was still unsure about one thing: what happened between Ryuji and Kamoshida.

 

**#** — **takamaki**

 

A photoshoot that I was expecting to show up to was postponed for today, so I decided to hang out with my best friend, Shiho, after school during her volleyball practice. I was looking forward to talking about the usual—how much school sucked, boys, the latest fashion trends—but the conversation we had was very… awkward. That probably isn’t the right word, but Shiho was quiet today, which was totally not her.

When she decided to talk, she sounded exhausted.

“I-I haven’t been sleeping well lately…” she mumbled. “Whenever I close my eyes, I keep thinking about too many things…”

“How come…?” I asked in a low whisper, wondering if something was wrong. Even though I knew Shiho the best, it was tough for me to understand what was going on in her head.

“Nationals are coming up soon,” she told me. “Do you think someone like me should really be on the starting lineup?”

“You’re just worrying a bit too much,” I tried to reassure her. I don’t know where she got this idea from, but I know that it wasn’t a good one. “Just be confident in yourself! Your skills have been recognized, and it’s all because you work harder than anyone else!”

Shiho was quiet again for a moment, but then she started talking again.

“Yeah…” she sighed. “Volleyball’s all I have, after all…”

“Well… more importantly, is your leg okay?” I asked her, noticing a black fabric wrapped around her right leg. “It looked really swollen yesterday.”

“No, it’s nothing,” she brushed it off. “It’s normal… especially since a meet’s coming up…”

I know that something about her leg wasn’t right, but I dropped the conversation. Shiho seemed upset about it, so I didn’t want to bring it up again. 

Mishima appeared out of nowhere shortly, telling Shiho that Mr. Kamoshida wanted to speak with her. He didn’t say what about, so Shiho seemed nervous about this sudden meeting. 

“It’ll be fine!” I tried to reassure her again. “I bet it’s a meeting about the starting lineup or something.”

“Yeah…” she replied. “I better go…”

“Yup! Good luck!”

Shiho walked off with Mishima, walking slowly so she wouldn’t injure her leg any more. Whatever she was going through, I can only hope that she hangs in there… 

 

**#—kurusu**

 

“Oh, you’re home,” Sakura-san noticed when I walked into the shop. “I take it you actually went to school today?”

“Of course, sir,” I nodded, hoping that he wasn’t going to give me any more trouble.

“I guess you learned your lesson after what happened yesterday,” he said. “Still though, I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but trust me, you’ll be gone if you start causing problems. Just stay away from bad influences, okay?”

“I know,” I said, on my way to head upstairs.

“All right then. I’ll lock the store up, so don’t try to sneak out.”

I did the usual when I got to my room. Homework, put a vinyl on the record player, and just tried to relax. I wish I had a manga to read or something, but neither Dad or Pa bothered to put a few of them in my box of items or whatever. I was kind of mad, but then I just let it go. Before I went to sleep, I heard the phone from downstairs ringing and got up to see who the hell was calling.

When I picked up the phone and asked who this was, I already forgot I gave Ryuji my number earlier. 

“It’s fine, man,” he said on the end of the line. “Anyway, your Walkman started looping back there, right?”

“Right,” I said. “That’s how we got to that world in the first place.”

“Your Walkman is brand new, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s so weird!” he laughed. “I got mine last Christmas. Never dropped it once and it loops like yours!”

“It sure does.”

“Yeah… also, you’re still comin’ to school tomorrow, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I’m countin’ on you, all right? Seriously, don’t fuckin’ ditch tomorrow. We gotta expose Kamoshida.”

“I’m on it.”

We said bye to each other and hung up for the night. I went back to my room, grabbing my journal to write about today’s events. A lot happened today at the Palace, but at the same time, nothing happened school-wise, so I wasn’t sure so what to write about. But then I thought about Ryuji again…

 

_ 12th of April, 1988 — Tuesday _

_ Something happened to my friend Ryuji last year. I don’t really know what happened exactly. All I know is that a teacher was involved—some bastard named Kamoshida. From what I’ve been told, he broke Ryuji’s leg all because the kid called him out for putting the track team through hell. That’s not all, of course. Like I said, I’m not too sure what else happened, but I’m sure what Kamoshida did was totally unforgivable. I mean, this man is also a pervert. How much worse can this get? The truth will be exposed eventually…  _

_ Ryuji seems to be over it, but I know it probably still hurts him. If it does, I want to let him know that he can… depend on me. I… I care about him.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you enjoy this story so far, don't forget to leave kudos/comments ! they are appreciated :-)


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